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Forums - Sales Discussion - December NPD 2022 Thread - #1 MWII, #2 Pokemon S/V, #3 GoW Ragnarok

Mar1217 on 22 January 2023

Sheesh I certainly hope Microsoft as a plan on the long term to manage the expectations towards the sells of the Xbox ecosystem cuz at some point the "it's a new generation, new system" will go out pretty fast and they'll only be able to rely on good software output which thus far has been abysmal.

Anywoo, their forecast for the this year at least looks to be more hopeful. We'll see if if that's gonna translate into a relative increase YoY for the systems sales (or it's ecosystem) by the end of the next one.



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DroidKnight on 23 January 2023

I found it disappointing the Xbox numbers weren't as good as it seemed.

Hopefully 2023 and 2024 provide a more accurate gauge of direction.

I'm going to remain optimistic in that with the longer generation before us, sales by all three will be more than respectable and record-breaking.



...to avoid getting banned for inactivity, I may have to resort to comments that are of a lower overall quality and or beneath my moral standards.

Frank_kc on 23 January 2023
trunkswd said:
CloudxTifa said:

Funny that in is this website, numbers prediction are always too high for Xbox but too low for PlayStation... biased much ?

That isn't on purpose and not always true. In Holiday 2021 we overtracked PS5 by nearly 1 million. 

We are working on changes for 2023 that will hopefully make our initial estimates a bit more accurate. 

Thank you Trunkswd for your efforts. Tracking those number is not easy, specially Xbox numbers Since Microsoft stopped sharing unit sales numbers long time ago.



Oneeee-Chan!!! on 23 January 2023

Blood_Tears said:
trunkswd said:

OP updated with VGChartz article on December NPD.

Aqua over at Install Base leaked NPD numbers for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S up to Nov 2022. (Not sure if I am allowed to link to the thread itself of that forum but there's lots of good info there so it's worth a look anyways)

PS5 US NPD HW:
Jun-22: 277K
Jul-22: 301K
Aug-22: 341K
Sep-22: 494K
Oct-22: 456K
Nov-22: 1328K
LTD as of Nov-22: 10592K

XBX US NPD HW:
Jun-22: 260K
Jul-22: 247K
Aug-22: 251K
Sep-22: 288K
Oct-22: 261K
Nov-22: 730K
LTD as of Nov-22: 8736K

That is greater than the ratio between PS4 and XB1 at the end of 2015🧐

Last edited by Oneeee-Chan!!! - on 23 January 2023

RolStoppable on 23 January 2023
Kyuu said:

Not bias... it's expectations. The community here generally expected this generation to be much closer than the previous one, this extends to the tracking team. Xbox quarterly reports being more vague than before (due to the big price gap between Series S and X) is also making revenues less meaningful/reliable for extrapolation. Xbox sales are extremely difficult to accurately estimate, this is why I never take any estimates very seriously, can't even trust Famitsu's numbers for the matter. But I respect most relevant estimates because they represent a knowledgeable person's hard work, which does apply to VGChartz.

That said, the leak's November figures were a disaster for Xbox. They lend weight to a lot of arguments that I and some others made, but even I didn't think it was going to be this bad. Series S is looking more and more like a misfired product, Series X too might be misfired in the sense that it's very expensive/difficult to produce in true mass quantities. Series S was likely carried by the pandemic and the limited PS5 (and Series X) availability relative to demand.

Let's see what Starfield can do because Xbox is in serious need for a killer app right now. Then again, Xbox's biggest problem may be its redundancy to the millions of players who are switching to PC.

Indeed, Series S looked much better than it really is due to the ongoing low supply of the SKUs that are in real demand. It's doubtful that the Series S will matter much in sales in 2024 and beyond as the component shortages should be finally sorted out. Then we'll finally see a stop to claims that Series S was a smart business decision when it really just came down to dumb luck with the unforeseen component shortages.

Microsoft's first party output has been abysmal for Series S|X when it comes to selling hardware. Xbox should not get beaten so decisively in the USA in November, but it's the result of Xbox having nothing really good going for it over PS other than Game Pass. If Microsoft continues to execute in such a lackluster manner, then the end of the component shortages will result in Xbox sales remaining flat to what they've been in 2022 while PS5 sales will increase very significantly.

Regardless of anyone's expectations though, it should be 100% obvious to everyone that Microsoft won't provide unambiguous shipment figures of any kind for their console business. At the same time it shouldn't matter too much, because we all know Xbox will finish in third place anyway. It's just the smaller question of by how much that will lack clarity for most of the generation, so why bother being upset with VGC.



Legend11 correctly predicted that GTA IV will outsell Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I was wrong.

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Shadow1980 on 23 January 2023

Good to see some numbers finally. Some time this week I'll have to post my updated charts. I kind of want to crunch some numbers to do an estimate for December since we don't have those numbers yet.

It's been quite some time since I posted any graphs here (lack of numbers is a big reason I don't post as often anymore), and I kind of want to do that again. Also, I...

Wait...

What's this?

I kid. I kid. Maybe. Don't @ me on this.

Seriously, please don't.



Visit http://shadowofthevoid.wordpress.com

In accordance to the VGC forum rules, §8.5, I hereby exercise my right to demand to be left alone regarding the subject of the effects of the pandemic on video game sales (i.e., "COVID bump").

Kyuu on 24 January 2023
RolStoppable said:
Kyuu said:

Not bias... it's expectations. The community here generally expected this generation to be much closer than the previous one, this extends to the tracking team. Xbox quarterly reports being more vague than before (due to the big price gap between Series S and X) is also making revenues less meaningful/reliable for extrapolation. Xbox sales are extremely difficult to accurately estimate, this is why I never take any estimates very seriously, can't even trust Famitsu's numbers for the matter. But I respect most relevant estimates because they represent a knowledgeable person's hard work, which does apply to VGChartz.

That said, the leak's November figures were a disaster for Xbox. They lend weight to a lot of arguments that I and some others made, but even I didn't think it was going to be this bad. Series S is looking more and more like a misfired product, Series X too might be misfired in the sense that it's very expensive/difficult to produce in true mass quantities. Series S was likely carried by the pandemic and the limited PS5 (and Series X) availability relative to demand.

Let's see what Starfield can do because Xbox is in serious need for a killer app right now. Then again, Xbox's biggest problem may be its redundancy to the millions of players who are switching to PC.

Indeed, Series S looked much better than it really is due to the ongoing low supply of the SKUs that are in real demand. It's doubtful that the Series S will matter much in sales in 2024 and beyond as the component shortages should be finally sorted out. Then we'll finally see a stop to claims that Series S was a smart business decision when it really just came down to dumb luck with the unforeseen component shortages.

Microsoft's first party output has been abysmal for Series S|X when it comes to selling hardware. Xbox should not get beaten so decisively in the USA in November, but it's the result of Xbox having nothing really good going for it over PS other than Game Pass. If Microsoft continues to execute in such a lackluster manner, then the end of the component shortages will result in Xbox sales remaining flat to what they've been in 2022 while PS5 sales will increase very significantly.

Regardless of anyone's expectations though, it should be 100% obvious to everyone that Microsoft won't provide unambiguous shipment figures of any kind for their console business. At the same time it shouldn't matter too much, because we all know Xbox will finish in third place anyway. It's just the smaller question of by how much that will lack clarity for most of the generation, so why bother being upset with VGC.


Well now that we have the hard number, especially for June-November via the NPD leak, we should be able to more accurately estimate US sales going forward, provided NPD doesn't adapt to the leak's information and become even more vague with their reporting.

November numbers were something of a shock. Sony isn't even pushing their cheaper SKU yet, and are selling a ton of consoles with forced bundles that raise the already much higher average price. They have a huge headroom for adjustments but they're starting to dominate without the need. I'll still give MS the benefit of the doubt... Xbox GamePass may take off when you're least expecting it, ABK deal potentially going through and MS getting aggressive with exclusives could also turn the tide in the US. Not to mention that PS5's current demand may be inflated and won't necessarily lead to a high baseline in the future even with more PS5DE's and less forced bundles. But that's just me being the devil's advocate.



ShadowLink93 on 24 January 2023

Yearly NPD winners from 1994, the 2022 number hasn't been leaked yet so it is just an estimation by users from InstallBase

1994: GEN - 3,27M
1995: SNES - 2,32M
1996: PS1 - 1,99M
1997: PS1 - 5,05M
1998: PS1 - 7,11M
1999: GMB - 7,21M
2000: GMB - 6,84M
2001: PS2 - 6,18M
2002: PS2 - ~8,50M
2003: GBA - ~7,70M
2004: GBA - ~7,10M
2005: PS2 - ~5,50M
2006: NDS - ~5,30M
2007: NDS - ~8,50M
2008: WII - 10,17M
2009: NDS - 11,19M
2010: NDS - 8,56M
2011: 360 - 7,24M
2012: 360 - 5,31M
2013: 3DS - 3,81M
2014: PS4 - 4,68M
2015: PS4 - 5,72M
2016: PS4 - 5,10M
2017: PS4 - 5,45M
2018: NSW - 5,64M
2019: NSW - 6,48M
2020: NSW - 8,98M
2021: NSW - 7,61M
2022: NSW - 5,80M to 6,00M

Using neogaf, resetera and Ludostrie.

Last edited by ShadowLink93 - on 24 January 2023

Kakadu18 on 24 January 2023
Kyuu said:
RolStoppable said:

Indeed, Series S looked much better than it really is due to the ongoing low supply of the SKUs that are in real demand. It's doubtful that the Series S will matter much in sales in 2024 and beyond as the component shortages should be finally sorted out. Then we'll finally see a stop to claims that Series S was a smart business decision when it really just came down to dumb luck with the unforeseen component shortages.

Microsoft's first party output has been abysmal for Series S|X when it comes to selling hardware. Xbox should not get beaten so decisively in the USA in November, but it's the result of Xbox having nothing really good going for it over PS other than Game Pass. If Microsoft continues to execute in such a lackluster manner, then the end of the component shortages will result in Xbox sales remaining flat to what they've been in 2022 while PS5 sales will increase very significantly.

Regardless of anyone's expectations though, it should be 100% obvious to everyone that Microsoft won't provide unambiguous shipment figures of any kind for their console business. At the same time it shouldn't matter too much, because we all know Xbox will finish in third place anyway. It's just the smaller question of by how much that will lack clarity for most of the generation, so why bother being upset with VGC.


Well now that we have the hard number, especially for June-November via the NPD leak, we should be able to more accurately estimate US sales going forward, provided NPD doesn't adapt to the leak's information and become even more vague with their reporting.

November numbers were something of a shock. Sony isn't even pushing their cheaper SKU yet, and are selling a ton of consoles with forced bundles that raise the already much higher average price. They have a huge headroom for adjustments but they're starting to dominate without the need. I'll still give MS the benefit of the doubt... Xbox GamePass may take off when you're least expecting it, ABK deal potentially going through and MS getting aggressive with exclusives could also turn the tide in the US. Not to mention that PS5's current demand may be inflated and won't necessarily lead to a high baseline in the future even with more PS5DE's and less forced bundles. But that's just me being the devil's advocate.

Last year in July the same user leaked the PS5 and XBS numbers from January-May in the same way and NPD didn't change anything. I think it's fine.



Chicho on 24 January 2023

Lots and Xbox doom and gloom in this thread but like Rol said we expect Xbox to come in third and when you look At Xbox vs Xbox even with the down adjustments X|S still ahead of any other Xbox Console.