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Forums - Sales - Persona 4 Golden Vs. Persona 3 Portable

Sal.Paradise on 19 May 2013
Tom3k said:
Soriku said:

It's not just recently, JRPG sales have been overtracked for a long time now.

If P4G is only at 78k in the US (as of Jan 26, the last date shown) then that seems OK. Maybe slightly overtracked but nothing major I don't think. But the US is by far the biggest game market in NA. It's really doubtful that the rest of NA gave P4G an additional 50k or so to reach the 130k number VGC has P4G as in NA.

You're forgeting that SONY's consoles are region free and for quite some time the US version of P4G was the only one available in English. I have a US version which I bought from Play-Asia (for example).

Lol, I did the exact same. But I haven't even started it yet and the European version released a while ago..now I'm mad at  myself for not holding out for the European release to support localization here :( 



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think-man on 19 May 2013
JayWood2010 said:
Can't wait for Persona 5. Although I really hope it is for the Vita. I prefer JRPG games on handhelds


Yeah im the same, I think its where all JRPGs should live from now on.



 

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Sal.Paradise on 19 May 2013
Soriku said:
Sal.Paradise said:

So do you know just how long the overtracking has gone on, and crucially do you know which games haven't received corrective adjustments after the fact? Or are you assuming none have like you did just now, incorrectly, with P4G? (Was that another safe assumption on your part? ) 

I definitely don't think that NA overtracking (which we know has been corrected for some games) results in us all assuming that all JRPGS in every country except Japan must be overtracked. 


I just remembered that VGC only shows sales for the first 10 weeks to regular users these days (which shows the 78k sales figure, but that's incomplete), but they have annual unit summaries that show total sales. VGC has P4G at 115,598 units in the US. This is a FAR cry from the NPD sales data we have.

I'm not the first person to mention that VGC sales for JRPGs are wrong. outlaw said it a couple years ago that VGC tends to overtrack JRPGs, and I realized that literally every other JRPG that we get NPD numbers for have sales here on VGC that are much higher.

@ First paragraph

Ok, I'll talk about P4G sales with you, even after showing they've been adjusted... You don't have to rely on the annual unit summaries for the USA data, just use the game comparison charts and set region to USA. To get the game totals, use the cumulative chart. And if we look at the P4G weekly chart here: 

http://www.vgchartz.com/tools/game_comparison.php?reg=USA&ending=Weekly&game%5B%5D=Persona+4%3A+The+Golden+%28PSV%29+%5B62901%5D&game%5B%5D=&game%5B%5D=&game%5B%5D=

We see a regular sales pattern, but then a spike in mid-late March and a steady return to normal afterwards (this is the period, after the 78k sales figure you were ok with, that you think the totals are too high for). Turns out, it had an official discount on the 19th March http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/19/fyi-persona-4-golden-on-ps-vita-getting-discounted  for a two week period. Perfect. (And if you want to argue the spike is too big, remember you'd now be dealing in only a handful of thousands of units...and from the NPD info you linked that we have of the game, we only have an estimate of its sales between 50k and 100k, leaning towards 50k...so a handful of thousands of units either way).

Also, don't miss what Tom3k told you about Europeans importing. 

 

@ Second paragraph

You're now telling me that half (assuming "every other" = half) the JRPGS you remember from NPD threads have higher numbers here than you'd expect, that sounds like a reasonable estimate to me and I'm inclined to believe it (But remember, as my response to your first paragraph shows, the vague numbers we get for many games in NPD threads nowadays + things you may not have accounted for..could mean that your assumptions are not going to be accurate on all the games you remember.)

Back to the original point now (phew!), half the JRPGS in NA being maybe overtracked based on NPD threads still is far from enough info for one to reasonably assume that every JRPG in every country execpt Japan must be overtracked. Still veery far from a 'safe assumption'. 



Tom3k on 19 May 2013
Soriku said:
Sal.Paradise said:
Soriku said:
Sal.Paradise said:

So do you know just how long the overtracking has gone on, and crucially do you know which games haven't received corrective adjustments after the fact? Or are you assuming none have like you did just now, incorrectly, with P4G? (Was that another safe assumption on your part? ) 

I definitely don't think that NA overtracking (which we know has been corrected for some games) results in us all assuming that all JRPGS in every country except Japan must be overtracked. 


I just remembered that VGC only shows sales for the first 10 weeks to regular users these days (which shows the 78k sales figure, but that's incomplete), but they have annual unit summaries that show total sales. VGC has P4G at 115,598 units in the US. This is a FAR cry from the NPD sales data we have.

I'm not the first person to mention that VGC sales for JRPGs are wrong. outlaw said it a couple years ago that VGC tends to overtrack JRPGs, and I realized that literally every other JRPG that we get NPD numbers for have sales here on VGC that are much higher.

@ First paragraph

Ok, I'll talk about P4G sales with you, even after showing they've been adjusted... You don't have to rely on the annual unit summaries for the USA data, just use the game comparison charts and set region to USA. To get the game totals, use the cumulative chart. And if we look at the P4G weekly chart here: 

http://www.vgchartz.com/tools/game_comparison.php?reg=USA&ending=Weekly&game%5B%5D=Persona+4%3A+The+Golden+%28PSV%29+%5B62901%5D&game%5B%5D=&game%5B%5D=&game%5B%5D=

We see a regular sales pattern, but then a spike in mid-late March and a steady return to normal afterwards (this is the period, after the 78k sales figure you were ok with, that you think the totals are too high for). Turns out, it had an official discount on the 19th March http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/19/fyi-persona-4-golden-on-ps-vita-getting-discounted  for a two week period. Perfect. (And if you want to argue the spike is too big, remember you'd now be dealing in only a handful of thousands of units...and from the NPD info you linked that we have of the game, we only have an estimate of its sales between 50k and 100k, leaning towards 50k...so a handful of thousands of units either way).

Also, don't miss what Tom3k told you about Europeans importing. 

 

@ Second paragraph

You're now telling me that half (assuming "every other" = half) the JRPGS you remember from NPD threads have higher numbers here than you'd expect, that sounds like a reasonable estimate to me and I'm inclined to believe it (But remember, as my response to your first paragraph shows, the vague numbers we get for many games in NPD threads nowadays + things you may not have accounted for..could mean that your assumptions are not going to be accurate on all the games you remember.)

Back to the original point now (phew!), half the JRPGS in NA being maybe overtracked based on NPD threads still is far from enough info for one to reasonably assume that every JRPG in every country execpt Japan must be overtracked. Still veery far from a 'safe assumption'. 


I was OK with the 78k figure because I thought that was the ending sales for P4G in the US. But assuming other regions of NA added like 50k sales for the 130k total in NA would be ridiculous. But I remembered sales cut off after 10 weeks, but we still have totals and the 115k total looks too high. 78k is just the total after 10 weeks. 115k is the final total, which is definitely too high.

Even taking into consideration imports, which really couldn't have been that much, it still looks too high because we'd be assuming tens of thousands of Europeans imported which seems unlikely, doubly so when a EU release was coming.

Btw, by every other I mean...every single one besides P4G lol. Not literally every other one. As of recently I saw VGC had Tales of Graces F and Abyss 3D overtracked, Ninokuni overtracked (got adjusted but still looks too high), Soul Hackers is overtracked, I believe Fire Emblem Awakening was overtracked too but also got adjusted (I don't know how accurate FE sales are now). Devil Survivor on DS is an older game but is overtracked as well.

So... 115k for US is overtracked, and what is then 27k for EU? You realise the EU (soon to be 28) is half a billion big?

The EU version was released 4 months later, and at the time of US release it was actually not certain in what capacity the game will be released here. 



Tom3k on 19 May 2013
Soriku said:
Tom3k said:

So... 115k for US is overtracked, and what is then 27k for EU? You realise the EU (soon to be 28) is half a billion big?

The EU version was released 4 months later, and at the time of US release it was actually not certain in what capacity the game will be released here. 


I don't know. We don't have NPD sales for comparison. And the sales are so low that even if it was overtracked it'd probably be negligible.

Imports won't make up that many sales.

Why is that? I know several people that have imported the game from US, and you have to keep in mind that i live in a really "shitty little country". Are the Canadian numbers added to US numbers? I assume people in Latin America had to get game from somewhere as well. Play-Asia is not the only web store that is selling games from "other regions"...



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Sal.Paradise on 19 May 2013
Soriku said:
Sal.Paradise said:
Soriku said:
Sal.Paradise said:

So do you know just how long the overtracking has gone on, and crucially do you know which games haven't received corrective adjustments after the fact? Or are you assuming none have like you did just now, incorrectly, with P4G? (Was that another safe assumption on your part? ) 

I definitely don't think that NA overtracking (which we know has been corrected for some games) results in us all assuming that all JRPGS in every country except Japan must be overtracked. 


I just remembered that VGC only shows sales for the first 10 weeks to regular users these days (which shows the 78k sales figure, but that's incomplete), but they have annual unit summaries that show total sales. VGC has P4G at 115,598 units in the US. This is a FAR cry from the NPD sales data we have.

I'm not the first person to mention that VGC sales for JRPGs are wrong. outlaw said it a couple years ago that VGC tends to overtrack JRPGs, and I realized that literally every other JRPG that we get NPD numbers for have sales here on VGC that are much higher.

@ First paragraph

Ok, I'll talk about P4G sales with you, even after showing they've been adjusted... You don't have to rely on the annual unit summaries for the USA data, just use the game comparison charts and set region to USA. To get the game totals, use the cumulative chart. And if we look at the P4G weekly chart here: 

http://www.vgchartz.com/tools/game_comparison.php?reg=USA&ending=Weekly&game%5B%5D=Persona+4%3A+The+Golden+%28PSV%29+%5B62901%5D&game%5B%5D=&game%5B%5D=&game%5B%5D=

We see a regular sales pattern, but then a spike in mid-late March and a steady return to normal afterwards (this is the period, after the 78k sales figure you were ok with, that you think the totals are too high for). Turns out, it had an official discount on the 19th March http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/19/fyi-persona-4-golden-on-ps-vita-getting-discounted  for a two week period. Perfect. (And if you want to argue the spike is too big, remember you'd now be dealing in only a handful of thousands of units...and from the NPD info you linked that we have of the game, we only have an estimate of its sales between 50k and 100k, leaning towards 50k...so a handful of thousands of units either way).

Also, don't miss what Tom3k told you about Europeans importing. 

 

@ Second paragraph

You're now telling me that half (assuming "every other" = half) the JRPGS you remember from NPD threads have higher numbers here than you'd expect, that sounds like a reasonable estimate to me and I'm inclined to believe it (But remember, as my response to your first paragraph shows, the vague numbers we get for many games in NPD threads nowadays + things you may not have accounted for..could mean that your assumptions are not going to be accurate on all the games you remember.)

Back to the original point now (phew!), half the JRPGS in NA being maybe overtracked based on NPD threads still is far from enough info for one to reasonably assume that every JRPG in every country execpt Japan must be overtracked. Still veery far from a 'safe assumption'. 


I was OK with the 78k figure because I thought that was the ending sales for P4G in the US. But assuming other regions of NA added like 50k sales for the 130k total in NA would be ridiculous. But I remembered sales cut off after 10 weeks, but we still have totals and the 115k total looks too high. 78k is just the total after 10 weeks. 115k is the final total, which is definitely too high.

Even taking into consideration imports, which really couldn't have been that much, it still looks too high because we'd be assuming tens of thousands of Europeans imported which seems unlikely, doubly so when a EU release was coming.

Btw, by every other I mean...every single one besides P4G lol. Not literally every other one. As of recently I saw VGC had Tales of Graces F and Abyss 3D overtracked, Ninokuni overtracked (got adjusted but still looks too high), Soul Hackers is overtracked, I believe Fire Emblem Awakening was overtracked too but also got adjusted (I don't know how accurate FE sales are now). Devil Survivor on DS is an older game but is overtracked as well.

Right ok, so I misunderstood what you were saying but am pretty proud of my counter argument to what I thought you were saying I think I nailed it and those P4G numbers look fine and follow a proper sales pattern. I can see though that nothing will ever convince you until we get official numbers...you'll stick by that vague NPD number we got (somewhere above 50k..lower than 100k) and even if the sales on the site fit that number, you won't accept them as a possibility because you think they look too good(either out of genuine negativity about the sales, or because you'll be wrong). Fair enough lol, neither of us can prove it so best to not concede anything. 

But damn, getting back to the topic once again, this all came from my assertion that I know that JRPGs have been overtracked in NA recently, but jumping to the conclusion that they are all overtracked outside of Japan is not a safe assumption at all. And everything above just affirms that..here's some recent games that look like theyre overtracked in NA...oh but Ni No Kuni got adjustments actually...P4G fits the NPD number and price cut...FE got adjusted too... I mean, we're not even touching on every region outside of NA's numbers being off, and we're already finding games that could be very close or spot on in NA. And I think how you don't really address that part of my argument anymore tells me it's a pretty reasonable statement I made, so I'm happy about that. 



Sal.Paradise on 20 May 2013
Soriku said:
Sal.Paradise said:

Right ok, so I misunderstood what you were saying but am pretty proud of my counter argument to what I thought you were saying I think I nailed it and those P4G numbers look fine and follow a proper sales pattern. I can see though that nothing will ever convince you until we get official numbers...you'll stick by that vague NPD number we got (somewhere above 50k..lower than 100k) and even if the sales on the site fit that number, you won't accept them as a possibility because you think they look too good(either out of genuine negativity about the sales, or because you'll be wrong). Fair enough lol, neither of us can prove it so best to not concede anything. 

But damn, getting back to the topic once again, this all came from my assertion that I know that JRPGs have been overtracked in NA recently, but jumping to the conclusion that they are all overtracked outside of Japan is not a safe assumption at all. And everything above just affirms that..here's some recent games that look like theyre overtracked in NA...oh but Ni No Kuni got adjustments actually...P4G fits the NPD number and price cut...FE got adjusted too... I mean, we're not even touching on every region outside of NA's numbers being off, and we're already finding games that could be very close or spot on in NA. And I think how you don't really address that part of my argument anymore tells me it's a pretty reasonable statement I made, so I'm happy about that. 

It's not negativity. P4G's seem pretty solid to me for a JRPG, and it's a port too and most of the game has been previously localized. But let's take this another way.

That GAF post I linked to was posted on Jan 10, but the NPD sales only track up till the end of the month, so Dec 31 I guess. Let's assume the LTD figure in NPD was 55k or so since there's a pretty big gap of games between 50k and 100k. Maybe 60k at the most. Looking at P4G's sales here, we have the sales at 73k by Dec 29. That's 13-18k difference right there. Going off that we shouldn't assume VGC managed to track the game accurately when there's a sizable gap between VGC and NPD within a couple weeks of the game's release. Even factoring in the sale later on, VGC most likely will have shown a bigger sales spike than NPD would have if we got specific sales data.

So yeah, even with adjustments it still doesn't look accurate. For Ninokuni last we heard it was at 150k (maybe slightly more?) sales IIRC. That was like a month ago. VGC has it at 230k in the US...

It is negativity though, about the sales (not the game itself). Bolded is already quite the assumption, considering we can't actually pinpoint it between 50k and 100k on the scale we were given, other than it is more likely closer to 50 than 100, and then we're dealing with a couple thousand units either way. As I said..that's fine. We can't prove our stances on P4G, you're just choosing to be negative about the sales, I'm choosing to be positive. And the whole point of our bickering is resolved anyway  



KingKazuma34 on 20 May 2013

P4G really does deserve all the sales. It is a fantastic game. I consider it the best JRPG that I have ever played before, that's just me. Can't wait for Persona 5! If it is on Ps3 and Vita I would seriously buy both lol.



 

MANUELF on 20 May 2013
Sal.Paradise said:

It is negativity though, about the sales (not the game itself). Bolded is already quite the assumption, considering we can't actually pinpoint it between 50k and 100k on the scale we were given, other than it is more likely closer to 50 than 100, and then we're dealing with a couple thousand units either way. As I said..that's fine. We can't prove our stances on P4G, you're just choosing to be negative about the sales, I'm choosing to be positive. And the whole point of our bickering is resolved anyway  

Actually RPGs overtracking here in VGChartz and especially in America is pretty common, some examples are the fact that no Tales game on any sony console have sold over 100k before Tales of Graces F and we have tales of graces f selling over 100k in its first week and that was obviously overtracked because some NPD insider in neogaf said is sold 70k in the whole month of march and another big example is the original valkyria chronicles that we have at 640k in the america region or almost three times its japanese sales and that is way too hard to believe dont you think so?
The problem I have seen is that we give every RPG way better legs than what they are really selling