September NPD Predictions
With US (and it's just US let's not forget that) console sales numbers
(estimations) about ready to come in, I thought it might be fun to
take a look at what the numbers might be this month. Will the Xbox 360
outsell the PS2 for the second time this year? (that would be the 3rd
time ever!) How will Halo change things? Did the PSP slim release
affect sales?
Here are Michael Patcher's numbers: (who is quite a sport)
Xbox 360 - 450,000
DS - 430,000
Wii - 425,000
PSP - 252,000
PS2 - 220,000
PS3 - 150,000
GBA - 65,000
And a couple of guiding principles:
1 - Sales are usually higher in September than August as Holiday
releases begin to occur
2 - Pre-Halo 3 I predicted Xbox 360 numbers at 360k (so despite now
knowing the Halo 3 sales numbers I should probably stick with the old
prediction, though if I were to change it, 420k sounds about right)
My guesses (Red means my number is lower, green is higher, Black is =)
Xbox 360 - 360,000
DS - 441,000
Wii - 394,000
PSP - 225,000
PS2 - 232,000
PS3 - 150,000
GBA - 70,000
Stories to watch for:
1 - Does the 360 outsell the Wii. With Halo 3, the flagship 360 title
out in September, if the 360 doesn't outsell the Wii it would paint an
interesting picture.
2 - Does Metroid Prime 3 sell? It was released late in August to rave
reviews and pretty 'meh' sales. Perhaps it was just poorly marketed,
but it is a good enough title that the mainstream gamers should be
picking it up. If it isn't selling, what does it mean to the lifetime
of the Wii?
3 - How many of the top 10 games are PS2 games? In August 3 of the top
10 were PS2, 1 was PS2, 2 were Xbox 360 and 4 were Wii.
4 - Will EA solve the Wii 3rd party riddle? Boogie sales were tepid,
Madden were disappointing and though the Wii version of Tiger Woods
outsold all other versions in the UK, it was a mere afterthought in
the US. Will MySims fare better? Will the long term sales of any of
the other titles make up for their poor launches?
5 - What happened to handheld gaming? Though the hardware is
outselling the consoles, the games, outside of Pokemon, aren't doing
much in the charts. Will Zelda's October 1 release put handheld games
back on the charts?
6 - Will Guitar Hero just keep on dominating?
7 - Will Heavenly Sword drive console sales?
Posted by Russell Carroll at 3:41 PM 1 comments
Monday, October 1, 2007
The Casual Threat!
With the continued success of the Casual market on the PC and the Wii
thoroughly dominating console sales, the casual movement, once thought
to be a nice side business, is starting to feel like a Threat to many
gamers. (with a capital 'T')
What is a threat? It is the expectation of future trouble.
When gamers first started playing casual games, their numbers were
few. However, as the money and audience has increased, the number of
developers has also increased, often inplace of core games. The core
audience has carefully eyed the casual audience's growth and the Wii
becoming popular with a bit more contempt of late.
As the success of the Wii has turned the core audience from a majority
into a minority, it has become the new whipping boy of the old core
gamer. You can see it often in the media with even developers like
Dave Perry jumping on with somewhat illogical arguments to try and
fight back against what they see as taking away from their favorite
pass-time.
The mainstream attack on the Wii parallels a longer attack that has
happened in the PC space. Especially among the Indie crowd, which was
formerly the shareware crowd, which formerly was the main money
driving source in the PC gaming space.
As casual has become the key downloadable games market, Indie
developers have gone to great lengths to decry the market as
simplistic and pointless. A general sense of 'dumbing' down consumers
and making games that don't challenge and perhaps aren't even games
has become the outlook on the casual games sector.
It's kind of like an avid outdoorsman, who hikes deep into the
mountains to more fully appreciate nature's beauty. In his mind, those
who stop at the side of a road and take in a vista from their car are
really missing out. The highway and national park system are dumbing
down the experience, keeping people from what's good, and bringing in
people he can't relate with to nature areas once only enjoyed by the
like-minded few.
What's important to remember is that there are lots of different
consumers who want different things. ...and that's a good thing.
When you go to sell your product the goal is the most sales, which
means you need more people looking at it. To that end, if you are both
a gamer and a businessman there is a lot of good that can from letting
go of your personal aprehensions and embracing the casual group to
ensure that your product is seen by the largest number of people
possible. After all, you never know when someone staring out of their
car window at a beautiful vista will decide to get out and walk to the
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