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Forums - Sales Discussion - March 2016 NPD Thread! Hardware and software up!

Zanten on 15 April 2016
Aquamarine said:
Zanten said:
Soooo this has probably been brought up somewhere in the thread before, but just in case, looking at Microsoft's NPD PR statement;

“In March, global hours spent gaming on Xbox One increased 89 percent compared to last year. Xbox Live engagement was driven by the greatest games lineup, including new titles released in March like ‘Killer Instinct: Season 3’ and ‘Tom Clancy’s The Division.’ ‘Killer Instinct: Season 3’ has seen record engagement across Xbox One and Windows 10 since it launched on March 29, making March the best month ever for the franchise with more than 6 million unique players. Last week, on April 5, we launched ‘Quantum Break’ to critical acclaim and it became the best-selling Xbox game around the world, and is now the biggest-selling new Microsoft Studios published IP this generation. We can’t thank our fans enough for their continued support and we’re looking forward to bringing more unprecedented experiences on Xbox One, Windows 10 and Xbox Live later this year.”

...would I be wrong in saying that the statement doesn't actually have anything to do with NPD data? Like, at all? We get a statement on 'user engagement,' which I'm pretty sure would be data that Microsoft keeps track of themselves via Xbox Live and whatnot, likewise when it comes to discussing engagement with Killer Instinct. When the statement moves on to sales, it's for Quantum Break, a game that released in April and therefore doesn't apply to March NPD anyway. In fact, unless Microsoft and Sony get NPD data weekly instead of the monthly PR statements/numbers we get, I'm assuming that Microsoft doesn't even have NPD information on Quantum Break's sales yet, and is relying instead on its own data, or other sources that release said data in shorter intervals.

(If Aquamarine is still reading this thread, does the fact that we get these statements monthly mean NPD only shares its software and hardware data with Microsoft and Sony for the end of every month? Or would both companies be able to see the estimates as they're being compiled, say, getting rough data on the 'Week 1' sales of their new game from NPD, before the official statements are released?)

Anyway, closes with the usual thank-yous, and voila. We have a March 2016 Microsoft NPD statement that has nothing to do with March 2016's NPD results.

Or, again, am I misreading something?

Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all internally track sell-through of their products.

Their internal data updates daily and includes physical + digital totals.

They only use NPD to take a look at how the broader retail market is performing. So Sony knows how much the PS4 sold, but Sony doesn't know that PS4 was the #1 console in March until market reports from NPD and GfK come out.

That's why NPD comes out two weeks after tracking stops...because there's no real desire for it to come out any sooner.

And that's also why Sony waits until NPD releases to make PR statements instead of doing them the instant March ends.

Thank you for the clarification! <3



Zanten, Doer Of The Things

Unless He Forgets In Which Case Zanten, Forgetter Of The Things

Or He Procrascinates, In Which Case Zanten, Doer Of The Things Later

Or It Involves Moving Furniture, in Which Case Zanten, F*** You.

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Jranation on 15 April 2016

We got PSVita numbers?



Pocky Lover Boy! 

Jranation on 15 April 2016

Lots of VGC overtracking!



Pocky Lover Boy! 

CosmicSex on 15 April 2016
Aquamarine said:
Zanten said:
Soooo this has probably been brought up somewhere in the thread before, but just in case, looking at Microsoft's NPD PR statement;

“In March, global hours spent gaming on Xbox One increased 89 percent compared to last year. Xbox Live engagement was driven by the greatest games lineup, including new titles released in March like ‘Killer Instinct: Season 3’ and ‘Tom Clancy’s The Division.’ ‘Killer Instinct: Season 3’ has seen record engagement across Xbox One and Windows 10 since it launched on March 29, making March the best month ever for the franchise with more than 6 million unique players. Last week, on April 5, we launched ‘Quantum Break’ to critical acclaim and it became the best-selling Xbox game around the world, and is now the biggest-selling new Microsoft Studios published IP this generation. We can’t thank our fans enough for their continued support and we’re looking forward to bringing more unprecedented experiences on Xbox One, Windows 10 and Xbox Live later this year.”

 

Can you qualify this bolded text. What is the next biggest-selling new Microsoft Studios published IP this generation?  Is there such a thing or is this statement some sort of term of art?  What does biggest-selling mean?  If it was the best-selling... wouldn't they say that?



Neodegenerate on 15 April 2016

Wow, a double post that had posts between.  That takes talent right there.  Or a poor work ISP.



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Zanten on 15 April 2016
CosmicSex said:
Aquamarine said:

 

Can you qualify this bolded text. What is the next biggest-selling new Microsoft Studios published IP this generation?  Is there such a thing or is this statement some sort of term of art?  What does biggest-selling mean?  If it was the best-selling... wouldn't they say that?

I guess it probably is best-selling, but as for the rest, it literally means a brand new IP, developed by any developer but that has been specifically published by Microsoft itself, as opposed to just signing an exclusivity deal. So the only comparison that immediately springs to mind is Sunset Overdrive, which was developed by Insomniac, but published by Microsoft. If anyone can name off some others, feel free of course. =D Titanfall wouldn't apply, as I believe it was published by EA. Halo 5 wouldn't apply, as it's an established IP. The original Halo, again, wouldn't apply, as it wasn't released this generation. Not sure when it comes to games like Ryse whether Microsoft was the publisher, or if it was just an exclusivity deal.

 

EDIT; Just to specify, I think the use of 'biggest selling' might be because, technically speaking, Quantum Break is still in the middle of its biggest sales period, i.e. the first few weeks, meaning that it is currently tracking above titles like Sunset Overdrive. Whether it ultimately ends up being the best-selling within its selected category will depend on whether the trend holds, and Quantum Break has the legs to outsell Sunset Overdrive and any other relevant titles' total sales.



Zanten, Doer Of The Things

Unless He Forgets In Which Case Zanten, Forgetter Of The Things

Or He Procrascinates, In Which Case Zanten, Doer Of The Things Later

Or It Involves Moving Furniture, in Which Case Zanten, F*** You.

TheGoldenBoy on 15 April 2016

Thank you Aqua for the numbers.

Lots of overtracking by VGC this month on software and hardware.



tbone51 on 15 April 2016

FE Fates might be close to 1mil if all versions are accounted for (each sale i mean, excluding revelations and counting special editon as 2)



Ali_16x on 15 April 2016
BraLoD said:

Was The Division really overtracked by over a million on a single month on a single country here?

So where was it undertracked? EU? ROW? Maybe it was really massive digitally?

Lol come on man, seriously? It's so obvious by now that VGC numbers are purely made up, you can't overtrack by a million for a game, that's just ridiculous.



"There is only one race, the pathetic begging race"

Mummelmann on 15 April 2016

That's some pretty poor tracking on home consoles for March, but Vita is spot on at least, the one that matters the most!