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August 2022 NPD (U.S. Hardware) Predictions - Closes Wednesday, September 14 [RESULTS]

Welfare

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Scholar Archivist Staff
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NEW RULES + EXPLANATION
Because Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities decided to stop subscribing to NPD this year, access to retail NPD appears to have been massively limited. Whether that's due to firms getting NPD through Pachter or agreeing with him that NPD data is worthless without digital sales (only video game companies that are on the digital board have access), leaks of hardware numbers might've dried up.

Fear not! I have a plan to remedy this set back so that this game can live on spirit. We will be transitioning away from predicting hardware units by console and instead be predicting Total Video Game Hardware Revenue and Order Of Consoles.

Every month NPD releases hardware revenue along with which console was in first place. We can always ask Mat Piscatella for the #2 console if he doesn't initially provide it.

How This Will Work
Predict how much revenue will be generated by Hardware for the given month as such

Good/Bad Formatting
Code:
Good                Bad
[REV] 405M          [REV] 400.5 million
[REV] 405,000,000   [REV] 405.000.000
[REV] 405000000     [REV] - 405000000

Then: Predict the order of each console FOR REVENUE as such

1. [NSW]
2. [PS5]
3. [XBS]

THE ABOVE IS IMPORTANT

The above is how you rank each console in terms of REVENUE. If you put NSW at 1., you are predicting NSW will be #1 in revenue.

Points
Hardware Revenue will be 50 points and follows how the hardware unit points work.

50 points * (percentage of correct revenue for hardware); anything over 100% difference = 0 points.

Correct Order would be the following in points.

If #1 correct = 18
If #2 correct = 10
If #3 correct = 7

If All Three correct = 15


That would be a total of 50 points to earn from console placements.

100 points in total to earn a month from the above two, plus bonus points for finishing in the Top 10 of hardware revenue.

#1 - 17 points
#2 - 13 points
#3 - 11 points
#4 - 9 points
#5 - 7 points
#6 - 5 points
#7 - 4 points
#8 - 3 points
#9 - 2 points
#10 - 1 point

Tradition Is Dead?
Not exactly. You will still put numbers down as if the game never changed. This will be your Unit ranking. Because I don't know if/when numbers will be made available again, there's always the potential they pop up again. If that happens, I want all of us to still make predictions as we have in the past.

RECAP
The 1.2.3. placements are how you will be ranking each platform for revenue. So if it's revealed PS5 was #1 in revenue and you had PS5 as 1., you get points for that.

The "traditional" predictions for unit sales will be separate to that. You can put whatever number you want there. You could have PS5 as 1. for revenue, but say you aren't sure about units and want to hedge your bets on Xbox being the actual unit lead. Example prediction below:

1. [PS5] 200K
2. [XBS] 300K
3. [NSW] 100K

This user has PS5 winning revenue, but Xbox for units. This is a valid prediction. How points are calculated are still the same 50 points assigned, but like this.

Each ranking still has the same value, If #1 correct = 18, If #2 correct = 10, If #3 correct = 7. If the revenue and unit results have the same placements, then nothing changes.

If revenue and unit placements/results are different, then points will be halved. Take the above example and we'll say the actual results are PS5 > XBS > NSW in both revenue and units.

The above predictor would get 9 points for predicting PS5 on top of revenue, but not the full 18 due to the unit placement. They would get 5 points for XBS for the same reason as PS5, then 7 points for NSW.

There are also bonus points for If All Three correct = 15. In this user's case, they'd only get 7.5 points as they got the correct revenue order, but not units.

In total they'd have 28.5 / 50 points.



ITT, predict for the NPD August 2022 retail period (July 31, 2022 - August 27, 2022) for U.S. hardware REVENUE and UNIT placements.

What is NPD?: NPD is one of the main retail tracking firms in the U.S., and also about the only one who specifically goes into detail on video games sales. This thread is to predict what the NPD hardware sales will be for the most recent month. NPD months are defined by the National Retail Federation (find calendar links here).
What do I win?: Bragging rights. We also keep track of predictions over the year and have an annual contest using "points." Still just bragging rights, but Sales followers have fun seeing how well we can do with it. See here for details on the point calculations. (Only used for Hardware Units)
Why are there still predictions when official NPD numbers are not released?:
Despite not receiving numbers from NPD directly since 2010, we have always found ways of obtaining them, whether through official company PR or leaks. These threads are also a place for the community to discuss the upcoming releases and current state of the US market as well as potential impacts in the future. In the end, it's for fun!

Prediction entries must be in and finalized by 8 p.m. EST on Wednesday, September 14th. Format use is required if you want your entry counted.

NPD Coverage: July 31, 2022 - August 27, 2022 (4 weeks, July was 4 weeks)
NPD Results Release: Thursday, September 15 @ 4 p.m. EST (PR+thread posted Friday, September 16 around 9 a.m EST)

Format:

[REV]

1. [NSW] XXX
2. [PS5] XXX
3. [XBS] XXX

Note: Combined totals for multi-SKUs. e.g. PS5 physical and digital edition total go under PS5. Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S total goes under XBS.

Good/Bad Formatting
Code:
Good                Bad
[REV] 405M          [REV] 400.5 million
[REV] 405,000,000   [REV] 405.000.000
[REV] 405000000     [REV] - 405000000

Code:
Good              Bad
[XBS] 1200K       [XBS] 1.2 million
[XBS] 1,200,000   [XBS] 1.200.000
[XBS] 1200000     [XBS] - 1200000

Potential hardware impacting events in August:
PS5 and Series X shortages - 28 days
PS5 and Series X availability improvements - 28 days
Splatoon 3 Switch OLED $359 - 2 days

Video Game Hardware Prices
Switch: $199/$299/$349/$359 (Lite/Regular/OLED/Slaptoon 3 OLED)
Xbox Series: $299/$499 (S/X)
PS5: $399/$499 | $449/$549 (Digital/Regular) | (Digital bundle/Regular bundle)

Older Hardware & Arcade cabinets: ??? (This is a factor but a small one)

Recent History Of August Hardware Revenue
Screen_Shot_2022-08-28_at_10.18.51_AM.png


July 2021 NPD thread
August 2021 NPD thread

NPD Prediction Thread Archive
 
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[REV] 420M

1. [PS5] 340K
2. [XBS] 290K
3. [NSW] 360K
 
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[REV] 422M

1. [PS5] 330K
2. [NSW] 350K
3. [XBS] 265K
@Welfare Is Switch Splatoon OLED model included?
 
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August 2022 Full Month (July 31 - August 27)

PS5 - NPD: ???
Week #StoresSource Post
1AmazonSource
2AmazonSource
3GameStop / Amazon / Sony DirectSource
4Walmart / Amazon / Sony Direct (2)Source

Xbox Series - NPD: ???
Week #StoresSource
1AmazonSource
2AmazonSource
3Best Buy / AmazonSource
4AmazonSource

Notes
Major Amazon update: The Xbox Series S vanished from the rankings June 17th and hasn't come back. This isn't due to a drop in sales, even previous months results have disappeared. I don't know why this happened.

Amazon full month rankings: #6 PS5 Horizon Bundle $549 / #8 Xbox Series X $499 / #18 PS5 $499 (Amazon full month goes from August 01 to August 31) Source

Best Buy is selling units in store on a store by store basis. These sales don't get announced, but online drops will still be reported.

Xbox Series S is in stock at every major and small retailer.

Xbox Series X has been in stock at Walmart, Target and the MS Store the whole month. Best Buy ran out mid way through but came back soon after.

Target now sells Xbox Series X|S and PS5 in store as stores get units, no longer on event schedule.

Amazon sold PS5 and Series X every week in August.

August should be a better month than July for both consoles. Not only did Amazon have units every week, PS5 saw its first Walmart drop since June along with continued long sales during Sony Direct.

Xbox Series X is nearly out of the sold out status it's had since launch. The only major retailer that doesn't have constant supply is GameStop.

Additional info: Madden came out August Week 3, Series S had a free game deal from August 19 - 28.
 
Install Base Prediction Average
REV: 393.52M (Standard deviation = 28M)

NSW: 346K (Standard deviation = 19K)
PS5: 319K (Standard deviation = 20K)
XBS: 279K (Standard deviation = 26K)
 
Thought tomorrow might have been a double bill of EU unit numbers and US revenue but guess not. Fortunately we have mobile numbers for the US.
 
Tomorrow? So nsw could possibly not be 1st this month, i
How many times since the new consoles released has nsw not got first place in units? Twice?
Wednesday. I goofed, forgot today was Monday.

September 2021 and January 2022 were the only times this gen Switch was not #1
 
August NPD is out now. PS5 #1 for units and dollar sales. Switch #1 for 2022 year-to-date. I don't see anything on which console is #2 in August. Though, I might have missed it.

Edit: Mat has told me on Twitter: "Switch #2 in units, Xbox Series #2 in spend."

 
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Yeah, congrats to those actually predicting PS5 #1 in units, damn, lol.

I changed my PS5 numbers a few times, but kept it 2nd.
 
I wish we got week by week units like JP, but hard with digital here. I'd really want to see what GOW:R does week 1 haha. Think it's gonna be huge.
 
NPD Prediction Results - August 2022

Revenue


Result: $375M

1. Kenka - 1,000,000
2. The_Liquid_Laser - 5,000,000
2. Joxer - 5,000,000
2. Xevross - 5,000,000
2. Cobalt - 5,000,000
6. SoonyXboneUhh - 10,000,000
7. jroc74 - 15,000,000
7. reksveks - 15,000,000
9. anthony98 - 20,000,000
9. Astrogamer - 20,000,000
11. Tbone5189 - 24,000,000
12. DeuceGamer - 26,000,000
13. Malden - 33,000,000
14. m051293 - 35,000,000
15. Myriotes - 39,000,000
16. Ystad - 40,000,000
17. Welfare - 45,000,000
17. awng782 - 45,000,000
17. BTB123 - 45,000,000
20. Fatih_656 - 47,000,000
21. Astral_lion02 - 49,000,000
22. IronTed - 52,000,000
23. donny2112 - 55,000,000

Congrats to @Kenka . Another great month on how close we were. 8/23 (35%) predictors were within 5% of the actual result, 14/23 (61%) were within 10%.

Points
Code:
August 2022                       Overall 2022 (7/8)
1.  m051293          95.33        Tbone5189          561.44
2.  Kenka            87.87        IronTed            558.01
3.  Cobalt           83.33        Welfare            557.07
4.  Joxer            83.33        Xevross            544.46
5.  Xevross          83.33        SoonyXboneUhh      536.56
6.  The_Liquid_Laser 74.83        Malden             526.38
7.  SoonyXboneUhh    74.67        Myriotes           510.65
8.  jroc74           73.00        DeuceGamer         509.72
9.  anthony98        70.33        Astrogamer         495.21
10. Astrogamer       70.33        Fatih_656          484.73
11. Astral_lion02    69.97        m051293            480.62
12. DeuceGamer       67.53        reksveks           475.79
13. Malden           66.60        Cobalt             474.02
14. Myriotes         65.80        Astral_lion02      471.34
15. awng782          65.00        jroc74             466.46
16. BTB123           65.00        awng782            454.16
17. Welfare          65.00        Joxer              435.27
18. reksveks         64.50        Wilmbreak          387.90
19. Tbone5189        64.30        Kenka              336.38
20. IronTed          64.07        The_Liquid_Laser   334.61
21. donny2112        63.67        BTB123             317.75
22. Ystad            57.17        Luke88             300.69
23. Fatih_656        56.23        Lelouch0612        274.69
24.                               donny2112          249.72
25.                               Ystad              222.27
26.                               Ryng™              211.01
27.                               Rellik             192.66
28.                               Josh5890           178.98
29.                               TurnoftheCentury   169.74
30.                               Abzeronow          168.65
31.                               MysticGon          142.82
32.                               Nocturnal          126.67
33.                               KillerMan          104.66
34.                               Shadow of the Void  99.81
35.                               TrunksWD            99.33
36.                               Luminoth 4545       98.00
37.                               Grimstat            96.30
38.                               Pancracio17         94.66
39.                               Bernd Lauert        86.26
40.                               DarkDetective       80.70
41.                               anthony98           70.33
42.                               POE                 69.82
43.                               Radagon07           69.79
44.                               Salesman            21.00
45.                               Aleh                10.00
46.                               allan-bh            10.00
47.                               Banjokazooie1992    10.00
48.                               Bruno MB            10.00
49.                               Chris1964           10.00
50.                               Ctap                10.00

Congratulations to @m051293 for winning Points!
 
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