Nintendo Wii U

[scottcr]

Emily Rogers has also made a good point - there are 150m+ 360/PS3 consoles out there (not owned by that horrible casual crowd who only buy one title every six years either right), and yet publishers appear very happy selling 1-2m units of any title (many sell significantly worse). That's about 1-2% of the userbase (roughly). Wii U currently has a userbase of around 3m - so anything selling over about 45k is theoretically doing just as well. Makes you wonder exactly what kinds of numbers the publishers really expected....(admittedly launch titles can expect an uptick in tie-ratio, but still reality has to come into it)

I saw that - it was quite an interesting way of putting it. Even the biggest games only sell to a tiny proportion of the market.

[Kelthink]

Emily Rogers has also made a good point - there are 150m+ 360/PS3 consoles out there (not owned by that horrible casual crowd who only buy one title every six years either right), and yet publishers appear very happy selling 1-2m units of any title (many sell significantly worse). That's about 1-2% of the userbase (roughly). Wii U currently has a userbase of around 3m - so anything selling over about 45k is theoretically doing just as well. Makes you wonder exactly what kinds of numbers the publishers really expected....(admittedly launch titles can expect an uptick in tie-ratio, but still reality has to come into it)

This doesn't make a jot of sense.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

Emily Rogers has also made a good point - there are 150m+ 360/PS3 consoles out there (not owned by that horrible casual crowd who only buy one title every six years either right), and yet publishers appear very happy selling 1-2m units of any title (many sell significantly worse). That's about 1-2% of the userbase (roughly). Wii U currently has a userbase of around 3m - so anything selling over about 45k is theoretically doing just as well. Makes you wonder exactly what kinds of numbers the publishers really expected....(admittedly launch titles can expect an uptick in tie-ratio, but still reality has to come into it)

I'm sure publishers will be over the moon to sell 45k copies of their multi million blockbuster.

[rgraves]

This doesn't make a jot of sense.

I'm sure publishers will be over the moon to sell 45k copies of their multi million blockbuster.

OK, let me rephrase and reframe - what kind of sales do you think 3rd party publishers were expecting to get for their Wii U titles in the first 3 months? And what kind of sales do you think they are expecting to get for their launch PS4/720 titles?

If applicable, please show your working.

[Bojangle]

I've never heard of Emily Rogers before but a quick Google suggests she's a fully paid up member of the NDF and writes amazing articles such as "Gaming Journalism Vs. Nintendo"

[scottcr]

what's funny about that article? It's actually true...

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

OK, let me rephrase and reframe - what kind of sales do you think 3rd party publishers were expecting to get for their Wii U titles in the first 3 months? And what kind of sales do you think they are expecting to get for their launch PS4/720 titles?

If applicable, please show your working.

Well, apparently they were expecting more when they started development than they're doing now or expect to be doing in the near future. If they thought they could release their games profitably on the Wii U, they would. But with Nintendo giving off a conservative estimate ("we can't produce enough units to meet demand!") and THEN having to reduce that by 20% because the damn thing doesn't sell fast enough and rumours of disasterous (third party?) software sales abound, they seem to want to cut their losses and rather release multiplatform or at a later date when there's a bigger installed base.

With the PS4/720 the whole market will shake up. People will flock to the new consoles by default once the stream of games for the old platforms dries up. The Wii U will then even be more of an afterthought than it is now. It's going to flunk.

[rgraves]

Well, apparently they were expecting more when they started development

Which was the question in my post, care to actually try answering it instead of just waffling around the topic and then doom-mongering?

[Venice Cull]

OK, let me rephrase and reframe - what kind of sales do you think 3rd party publishers were expecting to get for their Wii U titles in the first 3 months? And what kind of sales do you think they are expecting to get for their launch PS4/720 titles?

If applicable, please show your working.

For comparison...

Call of Duty 2 did a quarter of a millions copies during 360 launch week as far as I can establish.

The rest are:

Perfect Dark Zero sold just over 160,000 units, and was the third biggest seller; bought by about

half of new Xbox 360 owners.

The chart is revealed in NPD’s November report, belatedly

reissued late yesterday. The stats shown to Next Generation by various sources, reveal Call

of Duty 2 topping the Xbox 360 sales chart, followed by Madden, PDZ and Need

for Speed Most Wanted.

Microsoft’s own driver Project Gotham Racing came in fifth ahead of Kameo.

Activision’s Call of Duty 2 generated reveues of nearly $15 million,

followed by Madden ($10.3 million), PDZ ($8.8M) and NFS ($6.5M).

Project Gotham and Kameo both sold over 70,000 units, followed by

Condemned, Quake 4 and NBA Live.

Sales of Xbox 360 software hit $70 million.Estimated sales of hardware over the same period were around 330,000. Although

it’s dangerous to extrapolate from these figures too precisely, it does suggest a massive tie-ratio of three to four games per consumer.

http://www.edge-onli...0-launch-sales/

[Not Thread Owner]

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

Which was the question in my post, care to actually try answering it instead of just waffling around the topic and then doom-mongering?

U mad?

[Bojangle]

DOOM!

But seriously, wasn't that a full price launch game? That's pretty mental. But also awesome, because F2P done right is great.

[scottcr]

TANK TANK TANK is great fun btw!

[rgraves]

So, from the numbers that Venice just posted (cheers), it would appear that 100-200k was a very successful launch title for the 360 (160k was enough to be the third best seller). And, at launch, it would appear that the Wii U and the 360 shifted a pretty similar number of hardware units. So, some reasonable parity.

How then does that fit in at all with those quotes coming out that one third-party publisher was expecting sales in the 'millions' for their port (not even an exclusive title)? That would just have been unprecedented really and surely can't have been the basis of their financial planning.

[scottcr]

according to Rudderless...

"You can play one of three game modes up to three times a day for free. Above that you have to pay."

My son loves playing it...

[Not Thread Owner]

But seriously, wasn't that a full price launch game?

No - it was £25.

[Venice Cull]

So, from the numbers that Venice just posted (cheers), it would appear that 100-200k was a very successful launch title for the 360 (160k was enough to be the third best seller). And, at launch, it would appear that the Wii U and the 360 shifted a pretty similar number of hardware units. So, some reasonable parity.

Bear in mind those figures were for week 1, so you'd need to compare that with the week 1 figures on the WiiU (and also assume they sold the same amount).

COD went on to sell around a couple of million during 'launch' window. So you'll need to do your maths based around that.

I have no idea, btw - just giving you the tools.

[Kelthink]

So, from the numbers that Venice just posted (cheers), it would appear that 100-200k was a very successful launch title for the 360 (160k was enough to be the third best seller). And, at launch, it would appear that the Wii U and the 360 shifted a pretty similar number of hardware units. So, some reasonable parity.

How then does that fit in at all with those quotes coming out that one third-party publisher was expecting sales in the 'millions' for their port (not even an exclusive title)? That would just have been unprecedented really and surely can't have been the basis of their financial planning.

On the other hand, how does that explain that 45k units is a decent amount? That's what others are getting at here.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

I think rgraves almost cracked it. We just need to provide him with the relevant numbers and he can go off and write a letter detailing all the figures to convince the third party publishers to make the Wii U their lead platform.

[rgraves]

Bear in mind those figures were for week 1, so you'd need to compare that with the week 1 figures on the WiiU (and also assume they sold the same amount).

COD went on to sell around a couple of million during 'launch' window. So you'll need to do your maths based around that.

I have no idea, btw - just giving you the tools.

I think we can rule COD out as an outlier - or even just match it up with NSMBU or NintendoLand (which we know have both sold north of 2m copies already anyway iirc putting them in the same ballpark) - it's the more general 3rd party launch content that I'm wondering about (so the PGR/Kameo/PDZ level stuff). It just seems odd that people are suddenly expecting such huge numbers from a relatively tiny launch userbase - and declaring doa when they are not met.

As I said in my first post on this - if 150m+ PS3/360 owners are only creating 1-2m in sales for many titles, I find it hard to believe that anyone looking at plans anywhere expected a totally different ratio for their third-party launch software on a new Nintendo platform.

[Bojangle]

I think we can rule COD out as an outlier

Remember this was long before Modern Warfare elevated the CoD games to multi-million sellers, so I don't think comparing it to something like NSMBU is quite fair.

[rgraves]

I think rgraves almost cracked it. We just need to provide him with the relevant numbers and he can go off and write a letter detailing all the figures to convince the third party publishers to make the Wii U their lead platform.

Never let the chance to reasonably debate something get in the way of finding an angle to have a childish point-scoring jab eh Nap?

[Not Thread Owner]

Resident Evil Revelations for the Wii U for £27:

http://frugalgaming.co.uk/shop/pre-order-resident-evil-revelations-wii-u-26-98-using-code/

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

Never let the chance to reasonably debate something get in the way of finding an angle to have a childish point-scoring jab eh Nap?

You can't have a reasonable debate with fanboys. Every argument why third parties are abandoning the Wii U has been discussed in excruciating derail, but you still insist there's some anti-Nintendo conspiracy going on.

[rgraves]

You can't have a reasonable debate with fanboys. Every argument why third parties are abandoning the Wii U has been discussed in excruciating derail, but you still insist there's some anti-Nintendo conspiracy going on.

And so begins the 'fanboy' stuff <sigh> - and since when have I been insisting there is some kind of conspiracy going on - none of my posts have referenced anything like that. Try actually, you know, reading them.

[Kelthink]

And so begins the 'fanboy' stuff <sigh> - and since when have I been insisting there is some kind of conspiracy going on - none of my posts have referenced anything like that. Try actually, you know, reading them.

It is getting increasingly hard to take you seriously, to be fair.

[Venice Cull]

I think we can rule COD out as an outlier - or even just match it up with NSMBU or NintendoLand (which we know have both sold north of 2m copies already anyway iirc putting them in the same ballpark) - it's the more general 3rd party launch content that I'm wondering about (so the PGR/Kameo/PDZ level stuff). It just seems odd that people are suddenly expecting such huge numbers from a relatively tiny launch userbase - and declaring doa when they are not met.

Bearing in the mind not only were those figures for the first week, but only the American numbers. I'm not sure COD (consoles) was in anyway the behemoth that is is now, Modern Warfare is where the shit really kicked off.

But if we do take COD out of equation (unfairly though, I reckon) here's the list of 360 launch titles (America):

• Amped 3
  
• Condemned: Criminal Origins
  
• FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup
  
• GUN
  
• Kameo: Elements of Power
  
• Madden NFL 06
  
• NBA 2K6
  
• NBA Live 06
  
• Need for Speed: Most Wanted
  
• NHL 2K6
  
• Perfect Dark Zero
  
• Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie
  
• Project Gotham Racing 3
  
• Quake 4
  
• Ridge Racer 6
  
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06
  
• Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
  

You just need to get the sales figures for the (say) top 5 of those titles (around 90% of which will have been within the launch window) and then compare them to the top 5 3rd party Wii U launch window titles.

That should give you a rough indication of 3rd party expectations for a new console launch, I reckon.

[Venice Cull]

Emily Rogers has also made a good point - there are 150m+ 360/PS3 consoles out there (not owned by that horrible casual crowd who only buy one title every six years either right), and yet publishers appear very happy selling 1-2m units of any title (many sell significantly worse). That's about 1-2% of the userbase (roughly). Wii U currently has a userbase of around 3m - so anything selling over about 45k is theoretically doing just as well. Makes you wonder exactly what kinds of numbers the publishers really expected....(admittedly launch titles can expect an uptick in tie-ratio, but still reality has to come into it)

Oh, also, launch titles can sell to up to 50% of the userbase, so it's not really a fair comparison.

Selling to just 1-2% of your launch userbase is absolutely appalling (and probably unheard of)

[rgraves]

I know we've crossed swords before Venice (always in the nicest possible way obv), but thanks for at least managing to understand the points I'm trying to raise/debate and offering something constructive/useful back.

[Venice Cull]

I know we've crossed swords before Venice (always in the nicest possible way obv), but thanks for at least managing to understand the points I'm trying to raise/debate and offering something constructive/useful back.

S'alright, I'm interested - but just don't have the time to do the numbers!

Opinions can be debated - but facts, no sir, numbers are where true wisdom lay.

Edit: Incidentally, what started this off? Which publisher is complaining about their Wii software numbers?