Rllmuk's Official Sales Figures

[thesnwmn]

2 hours ago, Stanley said:

Shame about Rabbids, but I could how the core Mario audience wouldn’t get it. It’s not a difficult game by any means but it’s unlike anything else. 

 

1 hour ago, Dig Dug said:

Ubisoft need to understand that the shine is long gone from the Rabbits franchise. Many people actively resent it now because of how it was prioritised over Rayman.

 

15 minutes ago, rgraves said:

It really is, as it's an excellent game that clearly had a lot of love poured into it and deserves to do well. We all want publishers and developers to take risks, but stuff like this just makes it clearer why they are often not prepared to.

 

I think the reality here is that this is a turn based strategy game and that just isn't a particularly popular genre. There are exceptions, X-COM seems to have done very well. Those, Civilization and these developer's spin offs (i.e. Midnight Suns) seem to have an audience. Paradox too are popular with their audience.

 

But then the combination of brands isn't helping either. Rabbids clearly puts off some people which is a shame as I'd say they're broadly inoffensive here (especially in the second game). And I wonder how much Mario actually attracts people who will play this sort of game. Maybe they give it a glance because Mario, then they see that it's a strategy game and move on.

 

You only have to look at the thread here to see how little interest there is even from gamers who play a wide range of stuff.

[rgraves]

1 hour ago, thesnwmn said:

 

 

 

I think the reality here is that this is a turn based strategy game and that just isn't a particularly popular genre

 

But the first one sold about 10m......

[Stanley]

How much has this one sold? You know what these companies are like with their crazy targets 

[RubberJohnny]

If the sequel to your game does badly it implies people didn't really like the original that much.

 

The original Rabbids was mid, I dunno why people say it was great or whatever, there was a weird campaign to talk it up at the time maybe because people mentally categorised it as a Nintendo game. But it was a mediocre Ubisoft game where Mario has a gun and spends the whole game fighting behind waist-high cover, literally the parody western version of a Nintendo IP. 6/10 ass game.

[thesnwmn]

7 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

If the sequel to your game does badly it implies people didn't really like the original that much.

 

The original Rabbids was mid, I dunno why people say it was great or whatever, there was a weird campaign to talk it up at the time maybe because people mentally categorised it as a Nintendo game. But it was a mediocre Ubisoft game where Mario has a gun and spends the whole game fighting behind waist-high cover, literally the parody western version of a Nintendo IP. 6/10 ass game.

 

I think it's a better game than you give it credit for. But I don't think it's a stunner. It might convince people to try a turn based game of this nature but getting them to come back off the back of it is difficult I think.

[Chooch]

12 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

If the sequel to your game does badly it implies people didn't really like the original that much.

 

The original Rabbids was mid, I dunno why people say it was great or whatever, there was a weird campaign to talk it up at the time maybe because people mentally categorised it as a Nintendo game. But it was a mediocre Ubisoft game where Mario has a gun and spends the whole game fighting behind waist-high cover, literally the parody western version of a Nintendo IP. 6/10 ass game.

This is bullshit. 

[PaB]

I kind of got the impression that the original sold so well because it was released in the post launch drought and there was fuck all else out to buy. Obvs it had good reviews but we weren’t spoiled for choice at that stage.

 

the sequel had far more completion for people’s money. 

[Majora]

The Switch didn't really have a post-launch drought. In fact, the first year of the Switch's life was banger after banger. They pretty much lined up one big game per month for the first year.

 

I don't think it's anything to do with the quality of the first game either. It was well reviewed and well received by players. Or, at least, the people who post on internet forums anyway.

 

I think it's probably a combination of more competitive release timing (pretty sure the original released in August), the original game being frequently available for about a tenner on the eshop (how many of those 10 million copies sold were at full price?) and perhaps the wider audience who bought it not really knowing what they were getting into with the first game and skipping the second as a result. It wasn't particularly young kid friendly despite the Mario branding.

 

I loved the first game but feel ambivalent about buying the second. I'm just not sure I need another helping of it, I felt like I had my fill of it already. That plus the fact I knew how heavily discounted the original was. Most Nintendo games never go anywhere near that low in price but there's precedent for this franchise going dirt cheap. At some point I'll probably pick it up for sub £20.

[Stanley]

2 hours ago, RubberJohnny said:

If the sequel to your game does badly it implies people didn't really like the original that much.

 

The original Rabbids was mid, I dunno why people say it was great or whatever, there was a weird campaign to talk it up at the time maybe because people mentally categorised it as a Nintendo game. But it was a mediocre Ubisoft game where Mario has a gun and spends the whole game fighting behind waist-high cover, literally the parody western version of a Nintendo IP. 6/10 ass game.

Yeah, that’s a load of old bollocks, the bit about what you think of the game. The other bit is probably nearer the mark, about people not liking it, but that’s probably more down to it being a bit more esoteric than your average Mario game.

 

The sequel is superb btw, you should play it. It’s really cool how it incorporated free movement, not the first TBS game to do that but I’d like to see more. 

[HarMGM]

Ah, finally. Famitsu has decided to give out weekly numbers again. Well, two weeks combined in all honesty. It's the numbers from Japan once more.

 

Quote

Famitsu Sales: Weeks 1+2, 2023 (Dec 26 - Jan 08)

01./00. [NSW] Pokemon Scarlet / Violet # <RPG> (Pokemon Co.) {2022.11.18} (¥5.980) - 291.322 / 4.630.253
02./00. [NSW] Splatoon 3 <ACT> (Nintendo) {2022.09.09} (¥5.980) - 107.700 / 3.795.514
03./00. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe <RCE> (Nintendo) {2017.04.28} (¥5.980) - 68.772 / 5.083.147
04./00. [NSW] Nintendo Switch Sports # <SPT> (Nintendo) {2022.04.29} (¥4.980) - 66.720 / 954.442
05./00. [NSW] Dragon Quest Treasures # <RPG> (Square Enix) {2022.12.09} (¥7.264) - 48.297 / 246.700
06./00. [PS5] Gran Turismo 7 # <RCE> (Sony Interactive Entertainment) {2022.03.04} (¥7.900) - 38.892 / 256.905
07./00. [NSW] Minecraft # <ADV> (Microsoft Game Studios) {2018.06.21} (¥3.600) - 37.443 / 2.997.449
08./00. [NSW] Momotaro Dentetsu: Showa, Heisei, Reiwa mo Teiban! <TBL> (Konami) {2020.11.19} (¥6.300) - 34.770 / 2.817.703
09./00. [NSW] Mario Party Superstars <ETC> (Nintendo) {2021.10.29} (¥5.980) - 30.341 / 1.144.473
10./00. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate # <FTG> (Nintendo) {2018.12.07} (¥7.200) - 27.550 / 5.092.741

Top 10

NSW - 9
PS5 - 1

+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|System |  This Week |  Last Week |  Last Year |     YTD    |  Last YTD  |     LTD     |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
| NSW # |    250.718 |            |    344.617 |    250.718 |    344.617 |  27.974.765 |
| PS5 # |     85.156 |            |     57.354 |     85.156 |     57.354 |   2.462.545 |
| PS4 # |      4.128 |            |         39 |      4.128 |         39 |   9.421.895 |
| XBS # |      1.739 |            |        786 |      1.739 |        786 |     400.134 |
| 3DS # |        419 |            |        963 |        419 |        963 |  24.598.316 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|  ALL  |    342.160 |            |    403.759 |    342.160 |    403.759 |  66.047.785 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|  PS5  |     75.296 |            |     48.868 |     75.296 |     48.868 |   2.135.241 |
| PS5DE |      9.860 |            |      8.486 |      9.860 |      8.486 |     327.304 |
| XBS X |        200 |            |        555 |        200 |        555 |     172.611 |
| XBS S |      1.539 |            |        231 |      1.539 |        231 |     227.523 |
|NSWOLED|    142.789 |            |    172.855 |    142.789 |    172.855 |   3.714.801 |
| NSW L |     48.988 |            |     70.126 |     48.988 |     70.126 |   5.152.682 |
|  NSW  |     58.941 |            |    101.636 |     58.941 |    101.636 |  19.107.282 |
|  PS4  |      4.128 |            |         39 |      4.128 |         39 |   7.846.172 |
|n-2DSLL|        419 |            |        963 |        419 |        963 |   1.203.371 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+

Switch is down whilst PS5 is up compared to last year. One setting into an end-of-life cycle and one other opening for what will be a crucial year for the system and Sony's continued presence in Japan. Software wise the charts are still dominated by the Switch but with various big releases coming out we will see how the platform fares. First up will be this week's release of One Piece Odyssey.

[MrPogo]

17 hours ago, PaB said:

I kind of got the impression that the original sold so well because it was released in the post launch drought and there was fuck all else out to buy. Obvs it had good reviews but we weren’t spoiled for choice at that stage.

 

the sequel had far more completion for people’s money. 

When I was buying a Switch I had no interest in the game, but it was it was part of a “too good to say no” bundle; for something like £30 on top of the console by itself you got Mario + Rabbids, a fancy Zelda console case, a joycon holder thingy and one other game from a selection of first party titles I actually wanted (I picked Mario Kart). That might have contributed to a lot of sales!

[SeanR]

15 hours ago, HarMGM said:

Sony's continued presence in Japan

what do you mean?

[Stanley]

Are numbers available for Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope? We are assuming it’s sold poorly but that’s only going by Ubisoft’s forecasts, it’s all relative.

[Stanley]

2 minutes ago, SeanR said:

what do you mean?

PlayStation has been on a downward trend there for some time. 

[SeanR]

Oh, presence in the Japanese video game market sales figures, right…

 

wouldn’t that be “place” rather than “presence”?

 

would they pull out of video games if the sales dropped? Especially if localised to Japan? Is it a global trend?

 

 

[Stanley]

7 minutes ago, SeanR said:

Oh, presence in the Japanese video game market sales figures, right…

 

wouldn’t that be “place” rather than “presence”?

 

would they pull out of video games if the sales dropped? Especially if localised to Japan? Is it a global trend?

 

 

No they’re still doing better in other markets, and PlayStation is arguably more Western centric now anyway. 

[HarMGM]

5 hours ago, SeanR said:

what do you mean?

 

5 hours ago, SeanR said:

Oh, presence in the Japanese video game market sales figures, right…

 

wouldn’t that be “place” rather than “presence”?

 

would they pull out of video games if the sales dropped? Especially if localised to Japan? Is it a global trend?

I don't see Sony pulling out of video games but certainly out of the Japanese market on a much longer term. The brand has faced almost 13 years of continuous decline since the PSP's glory days and the PS5's trajectory in the market is faring worse then the PS4. A console that fared worse then the PS3 despite bigger third party games being launched for it.

 

Given the current state of Sony's platform, it looks like 2023 is going to be a year in which will see them decide to keep supporting Playstation a bit longer or make a decision to pull out come the next Playstation platform.

[bear]

When Sony release the PS6 its going to get released in Japan. Theres no chance they pull out of that market even if it is lower down their list of priorities than it once was. 

[bear]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/european-console-and-pc-game-sales-fall-71-over-2021

 

 

Quote

At a glance:

Video game sales fell, but new game sales increased year-on-year by 16%

PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch sales down, but Xbox sales up

FIFA 23, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Pokémon and Elden Ring drove game sales

UK ahead of Germany as Europe's biggest games market

 

Nintendo Switch was comfortably the No.1 console, despite sales falling by 15% over the year before. PS5 was a clear No.2 (sales down 35%), while the Xbox Series S and X consoles were the only platforms to report a sales growth year-on-year (up 4.4%) but it is in third position.

Switch was the No.1 selling console in almost every country with a few exceptions. In Denmark and Sweden, PS5 is the No.1 console, whereas Xbox Series S and X was No.1 in Norway.

 

I can only assume that the drop in PS5 sales is largely down to Europe getting less stock in 2022 than it did in 2021. 

[thesnwmn]

52 minutes ago, bear said:

When Sony release the PS6 its going to get released in Japan. Theres no chance they pull out of that market even if it is lower down their list of priorities than it once was. 

 

I mean is there anywhere these things don't get released. Maybe not in the first wave but consoles end up in most countries don't they?

 

I suspect the bigger question is more around localisation. Will everything get a Japanese translation? (I'm assuming all Sony first party stuff does today).

[mushashi]

23 hours ago, thesnwmn said:

I suspect the bigger question is more around localisation. Will everything get a Japanese translation? (I'm assuming all Sony first party stuff does today).

 

They localise games for smaller markets than Japan as-is, is South Korea or Thailand a bigger games market for Sony than Japan? And the answer to that question says it all.

 

Japan is in managed decline, much like the country itself then.

 

I remember an Edge article from the launch of the PS4, when Sony started their pullout from their homeland, and local commentators were rightfully pissed at the 2nd class service they were getting.

[Stanley]

I’ve said this before but it’s worth repeating, the worst thing Sony ever did was pull out of the handheld market. That sealed their fate in Japan and basically turned them into an Xbox competitor, but they should have been a Nintendo competitor. They seem stranded at the moment and unfocused. 

[Strafe]

I’d love few things more than a new handheld PlayStation but I’m not surprised they dropped out. The market for handheld at the time (and probably still), seemed to rely on more innovative fun things that Nintendo are renowned for rather than blockbuster titles like Sony are renowned for, hence the lack of interest in the Vita. So once the Vita undersold they realised there chances of competing against Nintendo were extremely limited so they knocked it on the head.

 

That said, I’m sure Sony have been watching the steam deck with great interest. I’d wonder how they’d position a new handheld in the market, though. They wouldn’t make something as powerful as a PS5 and given they’re dropping the last gen they wouldn’t be making games that could run on a PS5 and a hypothetical handheld system. Maybe. I reckon they wouldn’t bother.

[Stanley]

Yeah it’s a conundrum, you either go all in like Switch, or the more PC centric route that Microsoft have gone down with Xbox. Essentially you could make your Steamdeck your handheld Xbox player, there really is no need for an Xbox handheld in that sense. So it feels like the boat has sailed there for Sony as the market moves away from home consoles. 

[mushashi]

On 10/01/2023 at 12:29, HarMGM said:

I wouldn't necessarily look at hardware sales as the only barometer of when Nintendo should launch new hardware. Software sales are just as, if not moreso important and the Switch's software market is still booming. 2022 was actually trending ahead of 2021 at the end of September and that was before Pokémon S/V launched.

 

Meanwhile, the Wii's software sales were already in the toilet come 2011 due to lackluster first and third party support.

 

To an extent this is true, but new hardware sales drive software sales historically and unless you think the Switch is some magical device that will defy that intrinsic link, then new software sales will slow down with dropping new hardware sales, it usually lags it by a bit if you look at the Nintendo sales data.

[mushashi]

On 14/01/2023 at 16:39, Stanley said:

I’ve said this before but it’s worth repeating, the worst thing Sony ever did was pull out of the handheld market. That sealed their fate in Japan and basically turned them into an Xbox competitor, but they should have been a Nintendo competitor. They seem stranded at the moment and unfocused. 

 

This is only true if you take a Nipponese-centric viewpoint on things. Japan is at best a static or shrinking traditional games market and its global share and importance has dropped over the years. Dedicated handhelds were never an amazing business for Sony, it was at best decent so spending resources fighting for a share of the Japanese handheld market versus expanding their home console reach globally and their other expansion efforts seems quite logical as to which is the better longterm bet, which is all about Service Games and Recurrent Revenue.

 

The PSV couldn't get major third party support, unlike the PSP so was Saturn-doomed at birth and they obviously kind of knew it so never attempted a major rescue operation.

[Sarlaccfood]

3 minutes ago, mushashi said:

doomed at birth

100%
 

Not close enough to home consoles spec-wise to have simultaneous version dev/releases like Switch, but still powerful enough to need big teams and resources to develop for. 

[Stanley]

52 minutes ago, mushashi said:

 

This is only true if you take a Nipponese-centric viewpoint on things. Japan is at best a static or shrinking traditional games market and its global share and importance has dropped over the years. Dedicated handhelds were never an amazing business for Sony, it was at best decent so spending resources fighting for a share of the Japanese handheld market versus expanding their home console reach globally and their other expansion efforts seems quite logical as to which is the better longterm bet, which is all about Service Games and Recurrent Revenue.

 

The PSV couldn't get major third party support, unlike the PSP so was Saturn-doomed at birth and they obviously kind of knew it so never attempted a major rescue operation.

PS Vita was ahead of its time, but unfortunately it was also behind the times when it came to hardware design. Twin sticks, great, at last. No L3 or R3 buttons, L2 and R2, but here, have a trackpad on the rear of the machine  For a machine whose primary selling point was playing PS4 games portably by remote play, that was disastrous and woefully mismanaged. 
 

But when you look at what it shined at, playing indie games, and remote play for games that didn’t need quite so many buttons  it was brilliant. You could even play games on your TV, like the Switch. 

[HarMGM]

16 hours ago, mushashi said:

 

To an extent this is true, but new hardware sales drive software sales historically and unless you think the Switch is some magical device that will defy that intrinsic link, then new software sales will slow down with dropping new hardware sales, it usually lags it by a bit if you look at the Nintendo sales data.

Well that's the first time I've seen someone say that it's hardware that sells software. If anything its the opposite. Software sells hardware. Nothing 'magical' about it.

[Broker]

On 11/01/2023 at 18:45, HarMGM said:

Oof, Ubisoft have had a difficult Quarter looking at the results. It seems Just Dance 2023 and Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope in particular have underperformed.

 

Slowly but surely, the company seems to be going down.

Good

 

On 12/01/2023 at 10:05, thesnwmn said:

 

 

 

I think the reality here is that this is a turn based strategy game and that just isn't a particularly popular genre. There are exceptions, X-COM seems to have done very well. Those, Civilization and these developer's spin offs (i.e. Midnight Suns) seem to have an audience. Paradox too are popular with their audience.

 

But then the combination of brands isn't helping either. Rabbids clearly puts off some people which is a shame as I'd say they're broadly inoffensive here (especially in the second game). And I wonder how much Mario actually attracts people who will play this sort of game. Maybe they give it a glance because Mario, then they see that it's a strategy game and move on.

 

You only have to look at the thread here to see how little interest there is even from gamers who play a wide range of stuff.

I think one of the major problems is that the strategy game market isn’t crossing over with people who like pound shop minions that much.