The Gamer's Quarter

[Ryan - SuperWes' Bane]

The Wii comes out next month, the PS3 soon too . . . and what about the Xbox? I've seen sales numbers posted on here before (systems sales) and I've also seen NPD sales while scouring Google, but they haven't been updated as soon. I had trouble finding "NPD"'s website because I really don't know what NPD stands for, so I was hoping that somebody could either post the link to the sales numbers for both software and hardware, and maybe even post them up here to keep everybody updated on the first stages of the new console war? I'm sure it would be nice to see the numbers every week without having to look them up.

Hope somebody can help out.

[Nana Komatsu]

NPD stands for The NPD Group which has information on their retail tracking service here but you have to pay to see. Some people working at companies can probably get you reliable data, I know Tim Rogers has access to some numbers through his job once he asked for them, but there isn't a whole lot other than what gets republished on news sites.

[Shapermc]

There are a few of them for Japan. The US is harder (much harder) to get sales numbers out of. Media Create is a good one.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[dhex]

now this is fascinating, if i may hijack for a second.

outside of sports team salaries - and that's within the context of rivalries or an expression of disappointment, i.e. team xyz "bought" their wins while team zyx "earned" theirs, or player A is too busy thinking about his millions, and so forth - i cannot think of a single industry where sales are tracked by enthusiasts to such a degree. and where they matter to such a degree in the sports-team like debates between various camps of enthusaists.

i think it goes back to that hateful lovemark thing (great word, terrible book, btw) but i'm trying to think of comparable behavior. music, not really (the whole sellout thing is another ball of wax, the terrible sense of ownership and entitlement that comes from loving singularly from afar); movies? well, no, outside of people in the industry. books? maybe, but in the opposite direction. cars? i have no idea.

but regarding your question, no doubt every news site will have the launch numbers and all that for everyone, because as i've pointed out (via proxy, aka you), this is of considerable interest.
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[SuperWes]

I've seen a lot of people use the Amazon sales ranking numbers to judge US game sale comparisons. It might be pretty reliable as far as what's actually selling each week, but it's sometimes thrown off by having pre-orders listed.

-Wes
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[Nana Komatsu]

I'm thinking that if I get a Wii and/or a PS3, it'll be through Amazon and whenever they get shipped to me is fine. But it's curious that you can't even preorder the Wii, nor is there a product page for the PS3 at all yet.

[Fred]

Two words: LEXIS NEXIS.

There is an entertainment industry publication in there that publishes the NPD monthlies, though I forget the name... anyway, if you are a university student you should have an account. If you live near a university with a halfway decent library you can probably pay ten bucks or so for a "community researcher" library card, which ought to come with account access too.

//edit: the publication is Consumer Electronics Daily. Can't remember whether it is indexed in the General News or Industry database... anyway, they have it.

[Shapermc]

[Tablesaw]

[dhex]

sales rankings are very common. it is uncommon, however, for book fans to use sales numbers in their online disagreements with each other. generally speaking, especially with literature or "artsy" stuff, the exclusiveness of a work is part of its cultural draw, or even a signal of worth.
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[Tablesaw]

[dhex]

for video games, yeah, they're rather common. at least on ic. (seasonally, at least) fort told me that gaf is shot full of the amateur market analyst thing as well.

i think it's interesting that companies have legions of non-investors wrapped up in their corporate performance. research for the future, it is.
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[Shapermc]

Videogames are mostly still a consumers market and viable to these things. Look at the way they are reviewed, as though they were cars, or items of technology. They are mostly weighed on "bang for your buck" and then arbitrary things like "fun factor." It is no surprise that games have a tendency to draw statistics based on sales.

As far as nothing else being like this, well, cars are very much like this. “The #1 selling mid-sized van in the USA!” “Consumer Digest’s Top Pick of ’06!” If you can’t find similar quotes for games you aren’t looking very hard.

Also, to say that other medium is like this is crap. There is the Billboard Pop Charts (along with every other genera) that bases early sales and launches to make up their charts. You have the New York Book List for, well, books. For film you have “Top at the Box Office” type things every week. For all of these things we know that none of it matters. Third Eye Blind could have the top Billboard placement for months, Tom Clancy’s Bombs in a New Wave could hold the number one spot on the New York Book List for a full year, New Super Mario Brothers can be the top selling game of March: ultimately they will be forgotten or only mentioned in passing and that CD, Book, Game that never even hit the charts will be reprinted and reproduced for decades with high demand for the supply while those #1’s won’t.

The reason that games have these market analysis types is because we don’t have a “Billboard” of games. Perhaps this would shut people up.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[simplicio]

I think it's because it's perceived as a "winnable" market by its hobbyist followers. I'm sure there's a similar fan frenzy around Blue-ray and HDDVD among the home theater crowd.

Also, the fact that high sales tend to mean more 3rd party exclusives, which in turn boost the reputation of the hardware and thus the egoes of its followers.

dhex, do you think it's more of a lovemark thing or just more of a "lonely gamers wanting to be part of a population that shares their interests" thing that gets them people on these bandwagons to begin with?

[dhex]

lovemarks. and "winning" which is an extension of that in some sense.

the world is a weird place.
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[Lackey]

[Shapermc]