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Forums - Sales Discussion - Million Seller Games Thread

Toddifer on 21 February 2010
atma998 said:
Toddifer said:
atma998 said:
Toddifer said:

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see it all play out then :). And while I agree that Wii games tend to have long sales lives, you also have to admit that, realistically, none of the games you pointed out really have a shot at 2 million...(Sonic Unleashed is closest but I think it's surge was due to price cuts and I don't see much more room for more cuts on that title). In addition, if you look at the million list, there's only a handful of them that are over 1.5 million, meaning a lot of these games need to sell 600,000+ more to hit the 2 million mark, and that's not an insignificant amount to clear. I guess all I'm really saying is that I don't see many current 1 million sellers on Wii 'graduating' to the 2 million mark.


I kind of agree with you as for the actual 1 million seller games that could reach the 2 million mark. I don't think the Wii will reach as many 2 million seller as the X360. But the 1 million seller race will be very interesting.

Out of curiosity, since you clearly have more experience watching/tracking the numbers and such, where do you think these 3rd-party Wii titles will end up topping out at: Modern Warfare Reflex, Just Dance, EA Sports Active? I've been pretty impressed with them so far, as well as Toy Story Mania, and I'm wondering if the hype over the release of the 3rd movie might be enough to propel that to 2 million. Your thoughts? Plus, I definitely agree with you that the Wii will not have as many 2 million selling games as X360, but I think it just underscores the differences that have brought up again (and again, and again, ad nauseum) about how titles sell on the platforms. Wii has those astronomical selling hits, less 'mid-range' hits and more 'lower-level' hits, while X360 has less gigantic hits, more 'mid-range' hits and roughly the same 'lower-level' hits. The whole thing is really quite fascinating. Where do you see PS3 ending up in terms of million sellers and 2 million selllers? On par with Wii, or 360, or?

Wow there is a lot of questions there.

Let's begin with the 3rd-party Wii titles you mentionned:

Modern Warfare Reflex will soon reach its first million and judging by the numbers of other CoD games on Wii (CoD3 at 1.34M and CoD:WaW at 1.42M) I won't be surprised to see this game eventually reach 2 million of LTD sales since it is the best CoD game released on the Wii and that the franchise is getting more and more successful.

Just Dance is a total surprise in the industry (a little bit like Tomodatchi Collection in Japan), nobody saw those crazy sale numbers coming. 2 million is now guaranteed and it could even reach 3 million sometime aroud next Christmas. Those kind of sales are pretty hard to predict, so let's wait and see.

As for EA Sports Active, the game will reach 3 million this summer and will probably end around 4 million LTD sales when all is said and done.

Toy Story Mania is also on its way for the million mark. It will probably reach 1.3M-1.4M of LTD sales like a lot of Disney games on the Wii, but 2 million sees a little bit too far imo even with the release ot the new movie.

Finally, I don't see the PS3 to reach the same level of 1 and 2 million seller as the Wii and the X360 simply because it is too much behind those 2 consoles as of right now and that even if the PS3 is actually outselling the X360 in HW, we don't see a lot of new 1 million seller like the Wii and the X360 recently had.

 

I apologize for the barrage of questions, but I kinda got on a roll and it just kept going...plus, I value your input and appreciate you keeping up with this thread on a weekly basis, so...

I agree with pretty much all you said there. I think MWR can do 2 million on Wii. Wouldn't that be kinda crazy though? With all the 'doom and gloom' talk surrounding the 3rd party situation on Wii lately, to have not just one but TWO breakout games burn through 2 million that launched within a month or so of each other (Just Dance being the other, of course). I just find that interesting. EA Sports Active will clearly hit 3 million, and 4 million is definitely within reach...

I guess my question with the PS3 is will it follow a typical cycle? I know it's meant to go for 10 years, but it looks like it's just NOW starting to pick up steam. I think there's so many unanswered variables about what's coming down the pipeline (like when Microsoft and Nintendo launch new hardware), but presuming that Nintendo is sitting pretty riding the Wii cash cow and Microsoft really, really trying to beat Sony this gen, doesn't it seem likely that they'd both kind of ride this gen out as far as they can? It just would seem to me that, if Sony's really hitting it's groove with PS3 now that there should be a corresponding upsurge in hit software to accompany the hardware. I'm fairly new to all this, so if it flies in the face of historical examples, I apologize in advance for being a, what's the term?, oh yes, a 'noob'. LOL.



Bah!

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atma998 on 21 February 2010
De85 said:
atma998 said:
Toddifer said:
It's interesting how many more million sellers (proportionately) on X360 have reached 2 million than either PS3 or Wii...almost half of the million sellers on X360 go on to sell at least another million.


Yeah but you have to take into account that a lot of those 2 million seller had an extra year of sales (Saints Row, Fight Night Round 3, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 3, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, etc.) and that the games released in late 2006 had already a good userbase compared to the Wii and the PS3 at that moment which could explain this phenomenon.

To be honest, at this point I think the year head start is starting to become irrelevant because none of those games sold very many copies at all this past year, and I believe they were all already over 2M at the start of it.


That isnt the point here, those games were all released before the Wii and PS3 launch and therefore could have reached 2 million more easily with the pretty decent userbase the X360 had back then.



WilliamWatts on 21 February 2010
atma998 said:
Toddifer said:
It's interesting how many more million sellers (proportionately) on X360 have reached 2 million than either PS3 or Wii...almost half of the million sellers on X360 go on to sell at least another million.


Yeah but you have to take into account that a lot of those 2 million seller had an extra year of sales (Saints Row, Fight Night Round 3, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 3, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, etc.) and that the games released in late 2006 had already a good userbase compared to the Wii and the PS3 at that moment which could explain this phenomenon.

I think its actually due to the fact that Microsoft bundles a wide range of games to around 2M then no more. They have a tendency of picking up decent but cheap titles and bundling them for Christmas.

Forza 2, Viva Pinata, Sega Superstars, That disney published off road game, Marvel UA etc.



Toddifer on 21 February 2010
WilliamWatts said:
atma998 said:
Toddifer said:
It's interesting how many more million sellers (proportionately) on X360 have reached 2 million than either PS3 or Wii...almost half of the million sellers on X360 go on to sell at least another million.


Yeah but you have to take into account that a lot of those 2 million seller had an extra year of sales (Saints Row, Fight Night Round 3, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 3, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, etc.) and that the games released in late 2006 had already a good userbase compared to the Wii and the PS3 at that moment which could explain this phenomenon.

I think its actually due to the fact that Microsoft bundles a wide range of games to around 2M then no more. They have a tendency of picking up decent but cheap titles and bundling them for Christmas.

Forza 2, Viva Pinata, Sega Superstars, That disney published off road game, Marvel UA etc.

You make an excellent point, which I was just myself realizing a few minutes ago as I browsed through the top sellers of each system. If you look at Wii, obviously you have Wii Sports, and one can make an argument for Wii Play being a 'bundle', but not much else. On X360 you mentioned a bunch I hadn't even thought about, but there is also Lego Indiana Jones, Kung Fu Panda, Lego Batman, so that's what, 8 titles right there that were bundled (in at least one region)? So that certainly can account for some of that gap...



Bah!

atma998 on 21 February 2010
WilliamWatts said:
atma998 said:
Toddifer said:
It's interesting how many more million sellers (proportionately) on X360 have reached 2 million than either PS3 or Wii...almost half of the million sellers on X360 go on to sell at least another million.


Yeah but you have to take into account that a lot of those 2 million seller had an extra year of sales (Saints Row, Fight Night Round 3, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 3, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, etc.) and that the games released in late 2006 had already a good userbase compared to the Wii and the PS3 at that moment which could explain this phenomenon.

I think its actually due to the fact that Microsoft bundles a wide range of games to around 2M then no more. They have a tendency of picking up decent but cheap titles and bundling them for Christmas.

Forza 2, Viva Pinata, Sega Superstars, That disney published off road game, Marvel UA etc.

You make a pretty good point, this is another good explanation. Pure and LEGO Batman are also some of the 2M seller games that did it thanks to bundles.



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WilliamWatts on 21 February 2010
Toddifer said:

You make an excellent point, which I was just myself realizing a few minutes ago as I browsed through the top sellers of each system. If you look at Wii, obviously you have Wii Sports, and one can make an argument for Wii Play being a 'bundle', but not much else. On X360 you mentioned a bunch I hadn't even thought about, but there is also Lego Indiana Jones, Kung Fu Panda, Lego Batman, so that's what, 8 titles right there that were bundled (in at least one region)? So that certainly can account for some of that gap...

Thanks. One has to keep that in mind I guess. Nintendo has only ever bundled titles which are well over 5M by now. Both Sony and Microsoft have skewed their million seller numbers upwards with bundles so its actually not quite an Apples/Apples example.



De85 on 21 February 2010
atma998 said:
De85 said:
atma998 said:
Toddifer said:
It's interesting how many more million sellers (proportionately) on X360 have reached 2 million than either PS3 or Wii...almost half of the million sellers on X360 go on to sell at least another million.


Yeah but you have to take into account that a lot of those 2 million seller had an extra year of sales (Saints Row, Fight Night Round 3, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 3, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, etc.) and that the games released in late 2006 had already a good userbase compared to the Wii and the PS3 at that moment which could explain this phenomenon.

To be honest, at this point I think the year head start is starting to become irrelevant because none of those games sold very many copies at all this past year, and I believe they were all already over 2M at the start of it.


That isnt the point here, those games were all released before the Wii and PS3 launch and therefore could have reached 2 million more easily with the pretty decent userbase the X360 had back then.

The Wii and PS3 have both been out for well over a year now, and developed good userbases as well, why didn't they follow the same pattern after their first/second years?  The whole argument just seems like a bullet-point cop out to me, a way to explain the difference without giving it any thought.

Also, you can't chalk it up to userbase completely, Prey, Ninety-Nine Nights, Bullet Witch, Shadowrun, and Vampire Rain are all from around that era and all failed pretty hard in sales.  The listed titles are simply the better games from that time period so it's not surprising that they sold the best.



atma998 on 05 March 2010

Update: Dead Space (PS3) has been added to the 1 million section



atma998 on 05 March 2010

PS3 has now 50 million seller!



atma998 on 12 March 2010

Weekly update:

2M: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

1M: Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (X360) and Monster 4x4: World Circuit (Wii)