Circana February 2024: #1 Helldivers 2 #2 FF7 Rebirth #4 Skull and Bones #8 FF7 Twin Pack; PS5 #1 Units+Rev, Switch #2 Units Xbox #2 Rev [UP in OP]

Welfare · Mar 27, 2024

Ystad said:
Is it possible that old data can be purchased for a lot less than the ~100k/year (according to Pachter)?

I asked Mat a week ago if it were possible to buy a report and he said from what he knew, Games Market Dynamics starts at 25K a year, but he wasn't sure.

I didn't ask him about legacy data or a one time payment specifically but I think the answer won't be pretty

Market Dynamics in Gaming

Market Dynamics in Gaming Your view of the U.S. video game industry, down to the category level Complete this form to be contacted with more information about the U.S. Games Market Dynamics service. EXCLUSIVE INSIGHTS The U.S. Games Market Dynamics service is your single source for quarterly...

www.circana.com

Ystad · Mar 27, 2024

Starts at 25k a year... yeah, so full set... I don't want to even think about it.

Welfare · Mar 28, 2024

Ystad said:
Starts at 25k a year... yeah, so full set... I don't want to even think about it.

Maybe Pachter should resub to the data for cheap and just, you know...

Be charitable with it in private

Shadow of the Void · Mar 28, 2024

*cough* Crowdfunding. *cough*

Excuse me. Bad allergies from all the pollen. Anyway, $25k is a lot of money. Oh, if only I was lucky enough to win the lottery.

Aquamarine · Mar 28, 2024

Astral_lion02 said:
Yes, we have unfortunatly enter in a sort of 0 leak era regarding to US hardware.

In the beggening of this video Pachter talk about it's relationship with NPD/Circana.
Circana uses impressive methods to keep its figures secret, which favors the current situation.

I still get some Circana data like US hardware but honestly if you look at the long, protracted history of everything that went down, it's just not worth revealing them on a public forum anymore. Simply put, I do not look back on that time of my life fondly. As a member of the games industry I am saddened that simple hardware figures which are minimally controversial (and were once even proactively provided by NPD to NeoGAF) are shrouded in such secrecy, but c'est la vie.

salesguy · Mar 28, 2024

Ystad said:
Starts at 25k a year... yeah, so full set... I don't want to even think about it.

But even if you pay for such princely sums, you are not allowed to reveal the data.

People point at the movie industry, but isn't it the outlier? We dont know how many galaxy phones sell etc.

Car sales seems pretty public, though.

Welfare · Mar 28, 2024

salesguy said:
But even if you pay for such princely sums, you are not allowed to reveal the data.

People point at the movie industry, but isn't it the outlier? We dont know how many galaxy phones sell etc.

Car sales seems pretty public, though.

NPD Bookscan did some good as well. Just look at this link. They broke down the year by year into weekly performances

https://publishingperspectives.com/...n-the-rear-view-mirror-second-highest-at-npd/

And apparently Circana Bookscan still gives out sales numbers? This website has them, but you need a sub to access them, so I don't know how in depth they get.

PRO: Full Year 2023 Circana BookScan - Top 20 Adult and Kids Graphic Novels with Actual Sales

Accurate Info You Can Trust

icv2.com

Information from Circana BookScan is the gold standard for graphic novel sales information, and ICv2 (and on an annual basis, the excellent analysis by Brian Hibbs on Comics Beat) is the only authorized source of BookScan graphic novel sales rankings and actual sales info. Any other source of that information is likely to be inaccurate, incomplete, or both.

Yo Mat if you ever read this I'd love to do something like the above for video games and "actual sales info"

And here's this on restaurants, but I think this is meant to be private? Found it in the open on Bing search when looking for Bookscan stuff lmao https://www.circana.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2023-Definitive-Restaurant-Ranking-Final-1.pdf

StardustTraveler · Mar 28, 2024

When I first started paying attention to video game sales, I was really taken aback by how much more data we get on the Japanese market compared to the NA market. We're spoiled for info in the Media Create threads.

Terrell · Mar 28, 2024

KillerMan said:
It always baffles me how secretive industry gaming is compared to any other entertainment industry. Sucks =(

Primarily it's a difference in business model, the realities of said business model and its relationship with other business interests.

The Billboard Hot 100 exists because record companies could only track shipments but not sales, and the Hot 100 also tracked radio play, which is combined with sales to create a point value to rank singles (with sales weighted higher). And the music business basically loved someone else paying to do stats for them, which was also free advertising.

Box-office charts might not have existed were it not for theatres, creatives and the industry press demanding the figures, because the press likes a story, actors and directors (who are union workers) wanted data that increased their negotiating power, and theatres (especially independents prior to the big chains) wanted good data about what was popular at any given moment. The studios eventually folded that into their business model (while keeping VHS/DVD shipments and broadcast rights fees as much of a secret as possible for as long as possible), because they found good box office performance was good advertising and a way to diminish film critics (whom the industry had a historically frosty relationship with).

TV ratings are a thing precisely because it did not really serve broadcasters, it serves advertisers, the other half of the symbiotic relationship that makes broadcast television profitable. By knowing who's watching what programming, advertisers can achieve fair rates for air time on commercials. This is why those ratings also include demographic data. Of course, broadcasters also used that opportunity to jack up ad rates on the most popular programming, which likely made them more money in the end. And with the move to cable programming, since TV content was not historically served by them directly, subscription channel owners used that data to serve programming that motivated people to keep those subscriptions. This partly explains the push for streaming, because it makes that data more private but usable to the platform holders (though Nielsen tries to track that, too).

The video game business, by comparison, has been tracked mostly for the benefit of large retailers in North America (since publishers only care about sell-through insomuch as it indicates whether they'll get more shipment requests), historically has had a very controlling and dictatorial relationship with the industry press since its inception, and has a lot of visibility and control over their own sales data that does not require an outside party to measure for them; sales data's primary value to publishers in this environment is to track competitors' performance, but they've all kinda colluded to do that without much scrutiny from the general public in North America. The publicly published Circana chart is the big publishers wringing out some good PR while obfuscating as much comparative data as possible.

The examples in other media show that transparency in sales data is almost always about some necessary component for industry health having reason to keep it accessible to them without huge paywalls and NDAs. Japanese sales data, for example, is so consistent and prevalent because there is a much wider array of small independent retailers and chains who sell a LOT of product in that market and demand the data to make informed decisions around buying physical media. That simply isn't the case in regions like North America, where video games were bought from anchor retailers 90% of the time (and now Amazon). And over enough time, the industry press in Japan kinda just expected to be able to report sales data and put in the work to make sure that information is available with or without the industry's help.

But even Japan kinda fell afoul of secrecy in vidya sales data, which is why these weekly threads we enjoy begin with Famitsu data, once Media Create clamped down on its data being publicly available, but Famitsu's data gathering methods improved enough over time to be considered regularly reliable indicators of sales performance, because they put in the work to get that data themselves, where the rest of the international industry press largely didn't, with a few exceptions.

Astral_lion02 · Mar 28, 2024

Regarding to NPD's Monopoly it's interesting to known that very recently GSD has start tracking North America digital sales.

This information come from the lastest French report.

Last year they were saying they track 50 countries and North America was not mentioned so 3 countries have been recently added.

The first time they talk about US addition was few months ago:

Media Marketing | News | Sparkers, des data et des jeux

Media Marketing (MM) est éditeur de supports (site, newsletters, magazines, moteurs de recherche) consacré au secteur du marketing, de la publicité et des médias en Belgique.

www.mm.be

Welfare said:
NPD Bookscan did some good as well. Just look at this link. They broke down the year by year into weekly performances

https://publishingperspectives.com/...n-the-rear-view-mirror-second-highest-at-npd/

And apparently Circana Bookscan still gives out sales numbers? This website has them, but you need a sub to access them, so I don't know how in depth they get.

PRO: Full Year 2023 Circana BookScan - Top 20 Adult and Kids Graphic Novels with Actual Sales

Accurate Info You Can Trust

icv2.com

For february (only manga are listed from top 30)

Rouk' said:
Circana/BookScan (US) Ranking: February 2024 (Feb 4 - Mar 2)
RANK./PREVIOUS RANK. TITLE {RELEASE DATE} - SALES (GROWTH)

01./00. Chainsaw Man #14 {2024.02.06} - 46,420 / NEW
02./00. Dragon Ball Super #20 {2024.02.06} - 14,825 / NEW
03./02. Solo Leveling #8 {2024.01.23}
04./05. Berserk #1 Deluxe Edition {2019.03.26} - 11,410 (-15%)
05./15. Solo Leveling #1 {2021.03.02}
06./01. Chainsaw Man #13 {2023.12.05} - 8,196 / 86,507 (-57%)
07./03. Jujutsu Kaisen #21 {2023.11.21} - 7,017 / 74,570 (-58%)
08./00. Solo Leveling #2 {2021.07.20}
09./00. Solo Leveling #3 {2021.11.16}
10./07. Chainsaw Man #12 {2023.10.03} - 6,217 / 116,487 (-44%)
11./00. [Oshi no Ko] #5 {2024.02.20} - 6,067 / NEW
12./00. Solo Leveling #7 {2023.08.22}
13./06. Jujutsu Kaisen #20 {2023.08.15} - 5,719 / 86,801 (-52%)
14./11. Jujutsu Kaisen #1 {2019.12.03} - 5,217 (-42%)
15./08. Jujutsu Kaisen #17 {2022.08.16} - 5,024 (-49%)
16./09. Jujutsu Kaisen #18 {2022.12.20} - 4,912 (-48%)
17./10. Jujutsu Kaisen #16 {2022.06.21} - 4,805 (-48%)
18./12. Jujutsu Kaisen #19 {2023.03.21} - 4,697 (-47%)
19./00. Solo Leveling #4 {2022.05.10}
20./00. Vagabond #1 {2008.09.16} - 4,565
21./00. Berserk #2 Deluxe Edition {2019.07.09} - 4,226
22./00. Chainsaw Man #1 {2020.10.06} - 4,007
23./00. Berserk #3 Deluxe Edition {2019.11.05} - 3,860
24./00. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba #1 {2018.07.03} - 3,856
25./04. Kaiju No. 8 #9 {2024.01.02} - 3,799 / 19,188 (-75%)
26./17. One Piece #104 {2023.11.07} - 3,728 / 48,729 (-46%)

January 2024

Shadow of the Void said:
*cough* Crowdfunding. *cough*

Excuse me. Bad allergies from all the pollen. Anyway, $25k is a lot of money. Oh, if only I was lucky enough to win the lottery.

I think a project like that can work but as aleready said Circana policy against leaks is the biggest issue.

Anyways $25K for Circana is huge and when you look at what give Famitsu and Media create give for ~¥50K:

ファミ通ゲーム白書2023 | ファミ通ゲーム白書 | 総合マーケティングサービス f-ism.net

角川アスキー総合研究所では、国内外のゲーム市場を調査、分析し、その膨大な情報を『Famitsu Intelligence Strategic Marketing（略称 f-ism/エフイズム）』の名のもとに業界内外へ日々発信しています。

f-ism.net

A few points:
- full top 1000
- monthly sales trend
- sales by console/publisher
- few market data for others countries (NA, Europe, China)
- trends of related industries (Books)

株式会社メディアクリエイト

ゲームやトレーディングカードゲームに関する調査、ご相談はお任せください。新興国市場調査にも力を入れています。メディアクリエイトは、ゲームビジネスを中心とするデジタルエンタテイメント産業にフォーカスした、出版、データ配信、リサーチ、コンサルティングなどを手がけるシンクタンクです。

www.m-create.com

Media create don't give detail on their website but we known about top 1000 and monthly data.

I am curious about what would be the price for GfK and GSD to compare with.

My guess is that it's close to Circana but hard to known.

Rouk' · Mar 28, 2024

Welfare said:
NPD Bookscan did some good as well. Just look at this link. They broke down the year by year into weekly performances

https://publishingperspectives.com/...n-the-rear-view-mirror-second-highest-at-npd/

And apparently Circana Bookscan still gives out sales numbers? This website has them, but you need a sub to access them, so I don't know how in depth they get.

PRO: Full Year 2023 Circana BookScan - Top 20 Adult and Kids Graphic Novels with Actual Sales

Accurate Info You Can Trust

icv2.com

Astral_lion02 said:
For february (only manga are listed from top 30)

Circana/BookScan has a fair amount of data available.
PublishersWeekly is partnered with them and shares weekly top 10/25 for some book categories. The weekly sales number is included as well as the year-to-date total. Unfortunately, they remove older books from the ranking and I'm not exactly sure based on what. It doesn't seem to be consistent, but at the very least I've never seen a book from 2 years before chart (so no 2021 or before book in 2023, but sometimes, 2022 books that I know should have ranked didn't, so I'm not sure)

ICv2 shares monthly Top 20 from various graphic novels category. Solo Leveling is in the overall comic ranking but not included in the manga-specific one (it's a Korean manhwa), so I just added it back to the manga specific ranking because most other markets actually treat it like any other manga and it behaves like a manga anyway. That's why what I posted goes beyond a top 20.

You need the sub to get numbers but sometimes people leak them.
For years, there was a baidu user who did so, but they stopped in January 2022. I found a new leaker a few months ago.

The Brian Hibbs report on ComicsBeat is incredibly complete. It's an insane amount of work. It used to be even more complete: the actual sales of the entire top 750 were shared, but that stopped in like 2017 (the older data is gone, but you can find it if you play a bit with the wayback machine). Now we just get some info here and there based on what Brian writes. I summarized the manga part of it last year, here. But go give it a read if you're interested

Kowalski · Mar 29, 2024

I didn't know where to put this, but here at minute 14:57, Jim Ryan confirms that the PS2 sold 160 million units.
I think this is the first official confirmation we've gotten for this number, right?

Pikachupwnage · Mar 29, 2024

Kowalski said:
I didn't know where to put this, but here at minute 14:57, Jim Ryan confirms that the PS2 sold 160 million units.
I think this is the first official confirmation we've gotten for this number, right?

Welp looks like Switch 2 is delayed to holiday 2025 or early 2026 so Nintendo can snatch the crown

Anyways for Mario Vs DK Given its 50$ price #11 is a strong debut. Hope we get a brand new Mario vs DK in a few years.

Josh5890 · Apr 5, 2024

Didn't think this needed a full thread, but I wanted to drop this tweet from Mat somewhere.

The US Video Game hardware market peaked in 2008.Share of console purchases is increasingly swinging to older folks. Zoomers care less about console than prior gens, and Alphas may never care.Every video game company is thinking about expansion beyond console. They have to.

chroeser · Apr 5, 2024

Depends on what Mat defines as console, but Switch disproves this notion majorly.
So many children aged 7-12 are gifted Switches, especially after the Mario Movie. The wishlists going around my family were ridiculous. Everyone wanted a Switch for Christmas.

Anecdotally the two platforms that loose relevance in my sphere are XBOX and Gaming PCs, the first because MS doesn’t care for anything not US/UK and the second because it’s simply not affordable anymore.

PS5 is relatively safe because it’s the FIFA machine and Spider-Man is beloved.

But as long as Nintendo makes dedicated gaming platforms they will never fade away.

As a side note: So many kids do not even know how to use a PC anymore, growing up only with Smartphones and Tablets. We now have to offer special PC courses because all our software is Windows based.

Astral_lion02 · Apr 5, 2024

I really want to see an equivalent to this graph with USA:

Screenshot_2024-04-05-18-20-08-088_com.android.chrome-edit.jpg

In one way it confirm that console are not growing but in the other:

50% of households having at least one console mean that kids are very likely to have tried consoles in theirs childhood.
The ownership being pretty constant in a decade mean that consoles are not loosing interest.

StardustTraveler · Apr 5, 2024

Mat mentions down the thread that the chart is not inflation adjusted, meaning the gap between 2008 and now is larger than it appears.

derby_440 · Apr 5, 2024

In 2008 world economy was on peak before era of smartphones. Along with 6 consoles all selling good.

PS2, PS3, PSP, XB360, Wii, DS.

Welfare · Apr 5, 2024

Dedicated video game devices have definitely peaked in the US and we are long past that time.

By the end of 2013 we had the DS over 50M, Xbox 360, PS2, and Wii over 40M. PS2 is the oldest of those 4 devices launching in 2000, but DS was 2004, 360 2005, and Wii 2006.

PS4 only cracked 35M, XB1 couldn't crack 30M, and Switch in 2017 is the only device released in a decade to sell over 40M. PS5 might not crack 40M and XBS maybe doesn't crack 25M.

KillerMan · Apr 5, 2024

derby_440 said:
In 2008 world economy was on peak before era of smartphones. Along with 6 consoles all selling good.

PS2, PS3, PSP, XB360, Wii, DS.

?. 2008 was year of global financial crisis.

Evilnemesis8 · Apr 5, 2024

derby_440 said:
In 2008 world economy was on peak.

Now this is straight up trolling.

derby_440 · Apr 5, 2024

KillerMan said:
?. 2008 was year of global financial crisis.

The affect of that were seen starting from 2009. For exemple Lehman brothers went bankrupt in Sep 2008, start of financial crisis.

AViewtifulMind · Apr 5, 2024

Yup, Piscatella's tweet is definitely missing an "except Nintendo" disclaimer.

enpleinjour · Apr 5, 2024

Josh5890 said:
Didn't think this needed a full thread, but I wanted to drop this tweet from Mat somewhere.

Misleading way to phrase things, 2022,2023 were the 3rd/4th biggest years, but console saturation in mature console markets is a well known thing. Same with most things, eventually you reach adoption limits. Still plenty of growth to be had in new regions.

We already have demographic data from Nintendo and Sony themselves, which is better than whatever Matt uses, which I feel is once again that Circana Pulse thing with ambiguous accuracy.

KillerMan · Apr 5, 2024

derby_440 said:
The affect of that were seen starting from 2009. For exemple Lehman brothers went bankrupt in Sep 2008, start of financial crisis.

Recession in US officially began in december 2007. Nevertheless looking at that chart 2009 didn't see big drop either when it comes to console market. I remember reading how some analysts were actually bit baffled why video game market was recession proof (probably because people wanted to forget their real life worries).

balgajo · Apr 5, 2024

Yeah, sometimes Switch success made me forget they had even more with Wii+DS.

salesguy · Apr 5, 2024

enpleinjour said:
Misleading way to phrase things, 2022,2023 were the 3rd/4th biggest years, but console saturation in mature console markets is a well known thing. Same with most things, eventually you reach adoption limits. Still plenty of growth to be had in new regions.

We already have demographic data from Nintendo and Sony themselves, which is better than whatever Matt uses, which I feel is once again that Circana Pulse thing with ambiguous accuracy.

inflation is much bigger than ppl realize and makes the chart very misleading to the optimistic side. 22/23 might have been 3/4 in non inflation adjusted revenue but i assume not even close in units. well, the ps5/XSX is $500. You can see old posts of "Wal Mart store in 2003" and you will see bins of Gamecube for 199. That was a state of the art console at the time priced at 199.

a non inflationary measure such as hardware units will help.

but then theres also some per capita aspect, USA/world population is bigger since 2008.

the thing about the glory yrs of hardware sales is back then you had HUGE handheld sales along with home consoles. Now we really dont have handhelds from the big 3. when you had psp, ds etc adding hundreds of thousands to monthly hardware. So that makes hardware comparisons that include handhelds very difficult. i mean switch is a handheld but the effect is the same, since nintendo only has one console now instead of a home and a handheld. so if you just compare home console units (and include switch as home of course) i would suspect the hardware market is more steady. but still not growing really. especially when you think in theory you have huge markets like china becoming more affluent. those markets seem to ignore consoles, and they are mobile and pc markets.

Oregano · Apr 5, 2024

Welfare said:
Dedicated video game devices have definitely peaked in the US and we are long past that time.

By the end of 2013 we had the DS over 50M, Xbox 360, PS2, and Wii over 40M. PS2 is the oldest of those 4 devices launching in 2000, but DS was 2004, 360 2005, and Wii 2006.

PS4 only cracked 35M, XB1 couldn't crack 30M, and Switch in 2017 is the only device released in a decade to sell over 40M. PS5 might not crack 40M and XBS maybe doesn't crack 25M.

The issue I have with this recent crop of analysis is that it seems to be totally at odds of what actually happened, and how the industry responds to this growth.

The market for PS and Xbox home consoles has been static since PS2/Xbox but the in the gen following them the Wii, DS and PSP all grew the market massively but publishers were never fully in on those platforms, especially with the Wii it was apparent that a lot of the industry straight up resented it.

After that the successors to the Wii, PSP and 3DS all had their own issues but at the time that wasn't considered an important industry issue, that was just handhelds being replaced by mobile which the industry all too happy about and Nintendo falling flat on their face which no one really cared about. Xbox lost share to PlayStation but those consoles collectively were booming, revenue was soaring, digital had transformed the business model.

Then the Switch came and it actually showed some growth, I'm fairly sure you could lop of 30-40m units due to COVID and the end result would still mean it beat 3DS, Wii U and Vita combined.

You note Switch is the only console since the 2010s to hit 40m in the US but what does it lack? Well it doesn't have Call of Duty, it doesn't have Madden, it doesn't have NHL. It just straight up doesn't have the backing of the industry.

So right now we're hearing that the lack of growth for consoles, especially PS and Xbox home consoles, is an issue but those are the only consoles the industry is willing to rally behind. They threw the bulk of investment at PS/XB when the other consoles were smashing them, and Ubisoft even talked about using money made on Wii to fund HD games at one point and then when those other consoles struggled they were thrown to the wolves and publishers fiercely protected the HD twins.

We have the Switch successor coming at some point in the near future but industry consensus is already that it won't be another Switch level success which is probably a pretty good prediction but no one is going to be willing to try to make it a Switch level success. The investment going in is going to be with the expectation that it's not going be as successful as a console they've kind of kept at arm's length anyway.

Pancracio17 · Apr 5, 2024

Oregano said:
The issue I have with this recent crop of analysis is that it seems to be totally at odds of what actually happened, and how the industry responds to this growth.

The market for PS and Xbox home consoles has been static since PS2/Xbox but the in the gen following them the Wii, DS and PSP all grew the market massively but publishers were never fully in on those platforms, especially with the Wii it was apparent that a lot of the industry straight up resented it.

After that the successors to the Wii, PSP and 3DS all had their own issues but at the time that wasn't considered an important industry issue, that was just handhelds being replaced by mobile which the industry all too happy about and Nintendo falling flat on their face which no one really cared about. Xbox lost share to PlayStation but those consoles collectively were booming, revenue was soaring, digital had transformed the business model.

Then the Switch came and it actually showed some growth, I'm fairly sure you could lop of 30-40m units due to COVID and the end result would still mean it beat 3DS, Wii U and Vita combined.

You note Switch is the only console since the 2010s to hit 40m in the US but what does it lack? Well it doesn't have Call of Duty, it doesn't have Madden, it doesn't have NHL. It just straight up doesn't have the backing of the industry.

So right now we're hearing that the lack of growth for consoles, especially PS and Xbox home consoles, is an issue but those are the only consoles the industry is willing to rally behind. They threw the bulk of investment at PS/XB when the other consoles were smashing them, and Ubisoft even talked about using money made on Wii to fund HD games at one point and then when those other consoles struggled they were thrown to the wolves and publishers fiercely protected the HD twins.

We have the Switch successor coming at some point in the near future but industry consensus is already that it won't be another Switch level success which is probably a pretty good prediction but no one is going to be willing to try to make it a Switch level success. The investment going in is going to be with the expectation that it's not going be as successful as a console they've kind of kept at arm's length anyway.

I think this connects to the problem of the big publishers not making AA games and the graphics arms race. Im gonna take Rockstar as an example here.

Rockstars future depends on the performance of GTA6, and to make sure that game is far and beyond the rest of the industry they're gonna make it a super advanced and tech heavy game that no one else but them could make. However, this runs into conflict with them supporting the Switch. They would have to compromise on GTA6 to have it run there, and the execs running the company figure that isn't worth it, because then its easier to have a 'more impressive' game than GTA6.

As publishers and execs dived into fighting each other on having the bigger games, supporting platforms like the DS and Wii and now the Switch wasn't even in the cards. They looked at the games being attractive enough for people to buy, not where they were.

Xbox and Playstation design their consoles to make them as generic and easy to develop for as possible because they know publishers work like this.

Danny · Apr 5, 2024

Everyone talks about PC gaming killing consoles. But its mobile games and smartphones that are the big thing, both PC gaming and console gaming are niche interests.

Welfare · Apr 5, 2024

Only unit sales.

Welfare · Apr 5, 2024

Oregano said:
The issue I have with this recent crop of analysis is that it seems to be totally at odds of what actually happened, and how the industry responds to this growth.

The market for PS and Xbox home consoles has been static since PS2/Xbox but the in the gen following them the Wii, DS and PSP all grew the market massively but publishers were never fully in on those platforms, especially with the Wii it was apparent that a lot of the industry straight up resented it.

After that the successors to the Wii, PSP and 3DS all had their own issues but at the time that wasn't considered an important industry issue, that was just handhelds being replaced by mobile which the industry all too happy about and Nintendo falling flat on their face which no one really cared about. Xbox lost share to PlayStation but those consoles collectively were booming, revenue was soaring, digital had transformed the business model.

Then the Switch came and it actually showed some growth, I'm fairly sure you could lop of 30-40m units due to COVID and the end result would still mean it beat 3DS, Wii U and Vita combined.

You note Switch is the only console since the 2010s to hit 40m in the US but what does it lack? Well it doesn't have Call of Duty, it doesn't have Madden, it doesn't have NHL. It just straight up doesn't have the backing of the industry.

So right now we're hearing that the lack of growth for consoles, especially PS and Xbox home consoles, is an issue but those are the only consoles the industry is willing to rally behind. They threw the bulk of investment at PS/XB when the other consoles were smashing them, and Ubisoft even talked about using money made on Wii to fund HD games at one point and then when those other consoles struggled they were thrown to the wolves and publishers fiercely protected the HD twins.

We have the Switch successor coming at some point in the near future but industry consensus is already that it won't be another Switch level success which is probably a pretty good prediction but no one is going to be willing to try to make it a Switch level success. The investment going in is going to be with the expectation that it's not going be as successful as a console they've kind of kept at arm's length anyway.

But that's looking at a individual console level. I don't think it's a hot take to claim that if GTA, Madden, COD, Ass Creed, all the major third party games were day and date with Switch since 2017 to today and it continued into Switch 2, PS and Xbox would be selling less.

Them selling less and Switch boosting past 50M doesn't help the total market though. If market conditions shifted to Switch 2 even selling 60M in its lifetime, Xbox and PS6 aren't selling a combined 60M anymore.

The "power" of Microsoft and Sony first party + 3rd party = ~60M in 8 years. Factor in 8th gen's mid gen upgrades, the devices sold are up over 7th gen but unique users would be down.

PS2+XBX 8 years (2000-2007): 55.4M
PS3+360 8 years (2005-2012): 61.4M
PS4+XB1 8 years (2013-2020): 63.3M

Also this is generous to the later 2 gens because GCN would boost 6th up to 67.1M. GCN was very much a hardcore console getting a lot of third party support.

If the industry backed Nintendo, they'd go up while the Xbox and PS go down. We'd still be seeing a stagnating total market.

Dakota Joestar · Apr 5, 2024

derby_440 said:
In 2008 world economy was on peak before era of smartphones. Along with 6 consoles all selling good.

PS2, PS3, PSP, XB360, Wii, DS.

This just might be the most objectively wrong thing I have seen in my entire life.

AViewtifulMind · Apr 5, 2024

Welfare said:
But that's looking at a individual console level. I don't think it's a hot take to claim that if GTA, Madden, COD, Ass Creed, all the major third party games were day and date with Switch since 2017 to today and it continued into Switch 2, PS and Xbox would be selling less.

Them selling less and Switch boosting past 50M doesn't help the total market though. If market conditions shifted to Switch 2 even selling 60M in its lifetime, Xbox and PS6 aren't selling a combined 60M anymore.

The "power" of Microsoft and Sony first party + 3rd party = ~60M in 8 years. Factor in 8th gen's mid gen upgrades, the devices sold are up over 7th gen but unique users would be down.

PS2+XBX 8 years (2000-2007): 55.4M
PS3+360 8 years (2005-2012): 61.4M
PS4+XB1 8 years (2013-2020): 63.3M

Also this is generous to the later 2 gens because GCN would boost 6th up to 67.1M. GCN was very much a hardcore console getting a lot of third party support.

If the industry backed Nintendo, they'd go up while the Xbox and PS go down. We'd still be seeing a stagnating total market.

The industry's problem certainly goes beyond stagnant unit sales of consoles. The rising game development costs could be offset by new monetization schemes and an increasing share of digital sales for a while, but now even that isn't good enough anymore. So in that sense, the real problem aren't console sales to begin with, it's the pursuit of a business model that was bound to hit a wall eventually.

Oregano · Apr 6, 2024

Welfare said:
But that's looking at a individual console level. I don't think it's a hot take to claim that if GTA, Madden, COD, Ass Creed, all the major third party games were day and date with Switch since 2017 to today and it continued into Switch 2, PS and Xbox would be selling less.

Them selling less and Switch boosting past 50M doesn't help the total market though. If market conditions shifted to Switch 2 even selling 60M in its lifetime, Xbox and PS6 aren't selling a combined 60M anymore.

The "power" of Microsoft and Sony first party + 3rd party = ~60M in 8 years. Factor in 8th gen's mid gen upgrades, the devices sold are up over 7th gen but unique users would be down.

PS2+XBX 8 years (2000-2007): 55.4M
PS3+360 8 years (2005-2012): 61.4M
PS4+XB1 8 years (2013-2020): 63.3M

Also this is generous to the later 2 gens because GCN would boost 6th up to 67.1M. GCN was very much a hardcore console getting a lot of third party support.

If the industry backed Nintendo, they'd go up while the Xbox and PS go down. We'd still be seeing a stagnating total market.

There would undeniably be some cannibalisation but I don't necessarily think it would be 1:1 in terms of additional consumers in one and less consumers in the other. The nature of consoles and how they sell has always been one of momentum and that's not strictly linear based on the software available.

I think the Switch itself makes a case for that because it's software support is largely just 3DS + Wii U combined with some third party support picked up from Vita but that was enough to give it more momentum to beat those systems combined, all whilst the PS4/XB1 continued to keep pace with their predecessors. The addition of software support to PS4(+XB) that was previously handheld or Nintendo focused also didn't give them a proportional boost of momentum, although that is more notable in Japan for obvious reasons.

Regardless, right now everyone is doing the same thing they've done at least twice before and seeing the exact same result and being shocked and the obvious question should be... well what happens i f you do something a bit differently like the biggest console games also being on the biggest console?

Metal Gear Miyamoto · Apr 6, 2024

Josh5890 said:
Didn't think this needed a full thread, but I wanted to drop this tweet from Mat somewhere.

I'm seeing a lot of discussion around these graphs but there's two things not taken into account.

1. The economy in 2008 was at an absolute record level that has not been matched since before the great financial crisis. A lot of folks have said something along the lines of "but 2009 didn't show any weakness!" but that ignores that by 2009 it was mainly big companies that had suffered the most at that moment. The real hits for everybody else in terms of discretionary spending taking a hit had yet to come and we've never really returned to the same level of economic highs that we had from the early 1990's to late 2000's. Yet at the same time, gaming consoles and games have gotten more expensive as a hobby with the average console now being launched for $400 and games going from $50 to $60 to now $70 and that's not counting the amount of DLC and micro-transactions that have been added down to line.

2. Consoles as devices were heavily designed around the TV being in the living room. Yet after 2008, we had the smartdevice boom turning the tv from the focal point of the living room to just another screen in your house. Were you could once assume every single U.S. household had a TV, nowadays that is no longer a sure thing anymore. Yet consoles like the PS4/5 and Xbox One/Series are still geared around the use of a monitor almost exclusively. Is it any wonder that the only device to sell above 40m since the 360 is also the only one that can completely disconnect from the TV? People aren't interested in a console that can only play games on a TV anymore, which means the console will have to take on a new shape with new functionality in order to regain a foothold in the market.

Oregano said:
The issue I have with this recent crop of analysis is that it seems to be totally at odds of what actually happened, and how the industry responds to this growth.

The market for PS and Xbox home consoles has been static since PS2/Xbox but the in the gen following them the Wii, DS and PSP all grew the market massively but publishers were never fully in on those platforms, especially with the Wii it was apparent that a lot of the industry straight up resented it.

After that the successors to the Wii, PSP and 3DS all had their own issues but at the time that wasn't considered an important industry issue, that was just handhelds being replaced by mobile which the industry all too happy about and Nintendo falling flat on their face which no one really cared about. Xbox lost share to PlayStation but those consoles collectively were booming, revenue was soaring, digital had transformed the business model.

Then the Switch came and it actually showed some growth, I'm fairly sure you could lop of 30-40m units due to COVID and the end result would still mean it beat 3DS, Wii U and Vita combined.

You note Switch is the only console since the 2010s to hit 40m in the US but what does it lack? Well it doesn't have Call of Duty, it doesn't have Madden, it doesn't have NHL. It just straight up doesn't have the backing of the industry.

So right now we're hearing that the lack of growth for consoles, especially PS and Xbox home consoles, is an issue but those are the only consoles the industry is willing to rally behind. They threw the bulk of investment at PS/XB when the other consoles were smashing them, and Ubisoft even talked about using money made on Wii to fund HD games at one point and then when those other consoles struggled they were thrown to the wolves and publishers fiercely protected the HD twins.

We have the Switch successor coming at some point in the near future but industry consensus is already that it won't be another Switch level success which is probably a pretty good prediction but no one is going to be willing to try to make it a Switch level success. The investment going in is going to be with the expectation that it's not going be as successful as a console they've kind of kept at arm's length anyway.

I would add to this that Nintendo, with the DS and the Wii, showed you could sell dedicated devices to young women and elderly folks. Audiences that traditionally eluded plenty of other video game makers. Yet instead of trying to emulate Nintendo's succes with these customers, the industry at large treated these customers with disdain and never seriously invested in trying to get those audiences to buy more games. When mobile came along, it created a convenient excuse for a lot of companies to yell out "They've moved to mobile!" and never look back. Yet here we are 20 years on and the only device on the market that has a fairly balanced gender/age divide is the Switch.

Shadow of the Void · Apr 6, 2024

Most of the variability in the U.S. console market (and globally, but this is an NPD/Circana thread) over the past several generations has been on Nintendo's end.

In the 21st century they went from a relatively stable range of 8.5M to 11.5M units a year before exploding in 2007, reaching a peak of over 20M units combined across home consoles & handhelds in 2008 & 2009, only to rapidly decline over the following years, bottoming out to a low of under 3M in 2016, then rebounding again with the Switch. With the Switch 2 not coming out until next year, the cyclical nature of console sales and Nintendo having only one system means that this year is likely to be their second-lowest of the century in terms of hardware, but that's coming off of a very strong sales period when we limit things to a single system (the Switch has exceeded every Nintendo system in U.S. gaming history except the DS). Hardware sales should experience another big rebound next year with the Switch 2.

Sales of their systems are all over the place. The GBA sold 36.2M units (a total only exceeded at the time by the PS2 & probably also the Game Boy; it even pulled slightly ahead of the PS2 for a while by the end of 2004), the DS blew way past that with 53.5M units, but the 3DS fell well short of both of those with only 23.3M units. Even ignoring their handhelds, we swung from the GameCube (11.6M) to the Wii (41.8M) to the Wii U (5.56M) to the Switch (over 44M and counting; it'll probably end at around 50M).

Combined PlayStation & Xbox sales have been far more stable, having stayed in a much more narrow 60-70M range each generation. Whenever one falters, the other picks up the slack.

While combined PS5+XBS sales are trailing combined PS4+XBO sales, it's only by about 600-700k units LTD, hardly a massive deficit. Also, it is worth pointing out the severe supply issues both systems had earlier in the generation. Also, the PS5 is currently enjoying a healthy LTD lead over the PS4, somewhere in the 1.4M to 1.5M range based on known numbers and best-guess estimates. Not a huge lead proportionally, but a lead is a lead. The XBS meanwhile is trailing the XBO by an over 2M unit margin. However, that deficit is entirely from the holidays. The XBS's total Q1-Q3 sales have been exceeding those of the XBO every year, only for YTD sales to take a hit from relatively weak holiday sales. Even the PS5 had weaker holiday quarters in 2021 & 2022 than the PS4 did in 2014 & 2015. It does seem like Black Friday and Christmas promotions haven't been as aggressive as they were last generation, though I guess that's to be expected as stock issues probably didn't allow for that. With the stock issues resolved, maybe we'll start seeing permanent price cuts (something the PS4 & XBO had well before this point in their lives) or at least big holiday promotions. I do think we'll be seeing a final PS5+XBS number well in excess of 60M.

I think it's too early to say if the console market is doomed to steady decline as younger generations come of age. Conventional home console sales have remained stable, and if Nintendo keeps sticking with the Switch's winning formula they're probably guaranteed well over 40M units sold every generation. Of course, stability isn't growth, and so long as the standard corporate dogma is "The line must always go up" (something I don't agree with, but that's a topic for another discussion elsewhere) then the industry is going to be looking for other avenues for growth. That's why we've seen such aggressive monetization in games and a push for subscriptions and "live services" (spoken mockingly like Steph Sterling).

EDIT: Oh, and to address ballooning software development costs, that could be solved if the AAA segment of the industry wasn't so hell-bent on making every single-player game some gigantic spectacle. Too many games are massive 60-hour open-world sprawls. Too many games are filled with hours of advanced mo-cap cutscenes. We could deal with fewer ambitious games. Maybe that would help keep their budgets in check. "Linear" needs to stop being a dirty word. Maybe "short" games (<15 hours) should become more acceptable. Some of my favorite games since this past generation have included Metroid Dread, the RE2 remake, and the Ori games, titles that are nowhere near as ambitious in scale as your typical AAA game, and they all did very well for themselves. Not every major title needs to be the next GTA. Major Hollywood studios don't make every film they produce some big-budget blockbuster. There's many lower-budget titles. There's not some gulf between big-budget spectacle and low-budget indie projects like there is in gaming. We need fewer AAA games and more AA games.

Drblitzk · Apr 6, 2024

Welfare said:
Only unit sales.

I'm guessing that for consoles you are taking PS2, GC, XB, 360, Wii, PS3, WiiU, PS4, XB1, PS5, XBS and you are including SW in consoles going by handheld sales being 0 since 2020.

And yes you can see that the market has not grown like it did from 2000 to 2010, although this is just hardware sales, I don't know why so much emphasis is made on hardware when there are so many avenues to make money, but ok, when discussing hardware yeah you can see here the Wii effect on the console only chart and the importance of losing the handheld market in the overall chart, if the console videogame market is expecting PlayStation or Xbox to grow the market they are betting on the wrong horse, you cannot grow something by doing the same thing always, that has always been Nintendo's goal, we can see the Wii effect from 2007 to 2010, the years were consoles sales were the strongest ever, with the difference being almost entirely by people who never played videogames getting a console and never returning, the DS also had a big proportion of these people, and unless there is another console/handheld like these 2, that targets a completely different audience, sales will never return to those peaks, it is harder now with smartphones now having an important place but not impossible.

What these chart shows since 2017 is basically what a consolidated market looks like, let's hope Nintendo is again the big disruptor because I for sure don't think Sony or MS will even try it, they rather let the console market die.

Shadow of the Void said:
I think it's too early to say if the console market is doomed to steady decline as younger generations come of age. Conventional home console sales have remained stable, and if Nintendo keeps sticking with the Switch's winning formula they're probably guaranteed well over 40M units sold every generation. Of course, stability isn't growth, and so long as the standard corporate dogma is "The line must always go up" (something I don't agree with, but that's a topic for another discussion elsewhere) then the industry is going to be looking for other avenues for growth. That's why we've seen such aggressive monetization in games and a push for subscriptions.

I mean the problem is that if the expenses are growing but the market isn't it will lead to loses, that is why stability in this case is not good and is being reflected on things like the latest MS and Sony decitions.

StardustTraveler · Apr 6, 2024

What will Switch's final hardware number in the US market be?

Robjoh · Apr 6, 2024

Welfare said:
But that's looking at a individual console level. I don't think it's a hot take to claim that if GTA, Madden, COD, Ass Creed, all the major third party games were day and date with Switch since 2017 to today and it continued into Switch 2, PS and Xbox would be selling less.

Them selling less and Switch boosting past 50M doesn't help the total market though. If market conditions shifted to Switch 2 even selling 60M in its lifetime, Xbox and PS6 aren't selling a combined 60M anymore.

The "power" of Microsoft and Sony first party + 3rd party = ~60M in 8 years. Factor in 8th gen's mid gen upgrades, the devices sold are up over 7th gen but unique users would be down.

PS2+XBX 8 years (2000-2007): 55.4M
PS3+360 8 years (2005-2012): 61.4M
PS4+XB1 8 years (2013-2020): 63.3M

Also this is generous to the later 2 gens because GCN would boost 6th up to 67.1M. GCN was very much a hardcore console getting a lot of third party support.

If the industry backed Nintendo, they'd go up while the Xbox and PS go down. We'd still be seeing a stagnating total market.

I find it somewhat wrong to say that PS2 and xbox360 was pure AAA gaming machines.

Guitar hero was big on both machines. PS2 had games such as Buzz, singstar and DDR. Xbox360 got a real kinect boost.

The crowd that is into AAA on consoles has most likely grown, not fast enough to compensate for increased development budgets. The issue here is that Sony and Microsoft have lost what I would call the arcade experience (pick up and play, local coop). My 360 was mainly used for the arcade experience. I see little need for an Xbox series S/X or a PS5. They are expensive (well not Series S) and they do not provide me with the software I would like to play.

Astral_lion02 · Apr 6, 2024

Drblitzk said:
And yes you can see that the market has not grown like it did from 2000 to 2010, although this is just hardware sales, I don't know why so much emphasis is made on hardware when there are so many avenues to make money, but ok, when discussing hardware yeah you can see here the Wii effect on the console only chart and the importance of losing the handheld market in the overall chart, if the console videogame market is expecting PlayStation or Xbox to grow the market they are betting on the wrong horse, you cannot grow something by doing the same thing always, that has always been Nintendo's goal, we can see the Wii effect from 2007 to 2010, the years were consoles sales were the strongest ever, with the difference being almost entirely by people who never played videogames getting a console and never returning, the DS also had a big proportion of these people, and unless there is another console/handheld like these 2, that targets a completely different audience, sales will never return to those peaks, it is harder now with smartphones now having an important place but not impossible.

The market loosing the Wii/DS audience forever is something I do not agree.

More peoples own a video games device now than before the Wii/DS explosion.

It's just that if you buy a Switch instead of a Wii and a DS that's 2 times less devices sold.

The main reason hardware units will probably never come back to 2008 level is because they are only 3 devices instead of 5.

Celine · Apr 6, 2024

chroeser said:
Depends on what Mat defines as console, but Switch disproves this notion majorly.

He followed with:

Does that mean porting to other platforms and/or PC and/or Cloud and/or investing more in developing markets and/or leaning into cross-media endeavors like TV and Film and/or theme parks and/or toys and/or literally anything else? Sure.

Still misleading for Nintendo.
Nintendo's core business still revolves around their videogame platform business, the ventures into other businesses like smartphone apps, movies, theme parks and merchandising in general (by exploiting the IPs created with the videogame business) are there to stabilize the profitability so that the company is less susceptible to the ups and downs of generational cycles and as a way to reach people not yet in their console ecosystem in an attempt to convert some of them into their core business.
It's not by accident that the console that is setting new hardware sales records in recent years (best selling console of all time in Japan, likely second best selling in USA) is an innovative one like Switch that popularized the hybrid concept.

derby_440 said:
In 2008 world economy was on peak before era of smartphones. Along with 6 consoles all selling good.

PS2, PS3, PSP, XB360, Wii, DS.

2008 to this day retains the record as the highest selling year with a total of 34.8M console units sold in US (58% of which were Nintendo branded consoles).

Moving worlwide for the fiscal year ending March 2009 (Apr. 2008- Mar. 2009) Nintendo shipped 57.56M consoles, once again we are talking about a record number.

Drblitzk · Apr 6, 2024

Astral_lion02 said:
The market loosing the Wii/DS audience forever is something I do not agree.

More peoples own a video games device now than before the Wii/DS explosion.

It's just that if you buy a Switch instead of a Wii and a DS that's 2 times less devices sold.

The main reason hardware units will probably never come back to 2008 level is because they are only 3 devices instead of 5.

Mmm I don’t know if I agree with anything you just said, especially you’re conclusion, when we have an example of an era (2012-2016) where we had 5 devices but the weakest overall hardware sales since 2000.

Having 5 compelling devices at the same time was something only possible thanks to at least 2 of them targeting a completely different market and there being enough resources to give compelling software to all 5 of them, nowadays we have 3 systems and every dev stretched thin trying to support them, with indie development, more games are released than ever, but it feels like it’s their own thing, as in I very much doubt you could have a console being successful by being only supported by Indies, you need these Big games that drive people to the console for indies to also be successful, also Smartphones are a thing now, where a lot of those Wii Play and Touch Generations audience found what they were looking for on a device that they have for many other things, in a way you could say Smartphone is your 4th device.

And PC would be your 5th device, I know PC was already a thing by 2007 but it’s definitely stronger now than then.

There is also this idea that most people who had a DS also had a Wii, so it was the same people buying double, does that apply to the PS3 with PSP? I don’t think we can really prove this. Anecdotal but I don’t know a single person who had a PS3 and a PSP, PSP owners usually were handheld only users and they would have a DS too, or PS3 owners that had a DS. I personally only had a Wii and a 360, no DS.

Also a the idea that everyone who had a DS or Wii were into the expanded audience games, when I think there was a very defined line between the ones who were there for their usual Nintendo Franchises and the ones who were into the expanded audience games with very little cross pollination, with the majority being these expanded audience market but there was definitely a non negligible amount of Nintendo hardcore audience.

And to finish, let’s also remember that in those impressive 2007-2010 years there is an important amount of PS2 still being sold then, so the amount of “hardcore” audience buying consoles in 2006-2010 definitely grew from the amount of “hardcore” audience buying consoles in the 2000-2005, it was not just only the Wii/DS/PSP audience.

derby_440 · Apr 6, 2024

Dakota Joestar said:
This just might be the most objectively wrong thing I have seen in my entire life.

Will you bother to clarify? Not sure whats the point of posts like this.

Celine · Apr 6, 2024

Celine said:
2008 to this day retains the record as the highest selling year with a total of 34.8M console units sold in US (58% of which were Nintendo branded consoles).

Since I looked into the hardware marketshare by manufacturer in US, here a graph that shows it since 1995:

Just a few caveats about the above graph:
- GBC is included in the new game systems launched since 1995 even though it was in essence a "pro" revision of the OG Game Boy. Pocket revision sales aren't included even if it launched after 1995. GB had a crazy long lifespan.
- I've excluded smaller players like SNK (Neo Geo CD and Neo Geo Pocket), Tiger Electronics (Game.com) and Nokia (NGage) cause their consoles sold very little and are not notable enough to be included (for how much poor Saturn and Dreamcast has sold in US, at least they were million seller unlike the consoles mentioned above).

CaptainCrunch · Apr 6, 2024

derby_440 said:
Will you bother to clarify? Not sure whats the point of posts like this.

Are you kidding? This is common knowledge.

2007–2008 financial crisis - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

derby_440 · Apr 6, 2024

CaptainCrunch said:
Are you kidding? This is common knowledge.

2007–2008 financial crisis - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Affect of that were seen in later years, not in 2008.

Terrell · Apr 6, 2024

I'm not sure the hardware data is the right framing here. It's like trying to understand how useful a transit system is by the number of buses bought by transit authorities rather than ridership numbers. Likewise, how does the software part of this stack up? If they're selling a stagnant number of consoles, that's whatever, because hardware is, at its core, a delivery method for the thing that actually makes these devices worth anything. But with digital obscuring overall software figures in agregate, we can only go by figures provided by the platform holders, which paint a pretty rosy picture for software growth.

Also, bringing Gen Alpha into the equation when the oldest member of that cohort is only fourteen kinda isn't telling the whole story, either, because we also know those low age brackets do not swing in Sony or Microsoft's favour and haven't since... I wanna say 2006 or so? On top of that, consoles are not the primary media device that's given to children like they were in the 80s and 90s, that seems incredibly self-evident, but I can't see that as being an absolute permanent trend as they age. Unless we're going to argue that the current group of 20-somethings who make up the bulk of the Switch-using audience are somehow the very last who ever will buy consoles in those numbers, instead of the more likely explanation that they make up a large part of the audience because that's around the time they start developing more financial independence, just like how the PS1 era was a turning point for video game sales as the first of the NES-owning children aged into financial independence.

We know Nintendo's average age demographics, those aren't in question. If Sony and MS customers are part of a higher overall average age, all that's telling me is that those 2 platform holders have a poor replacement rate among the younger folks to replace people who drop off of consoles as they get older, and that's a problem they have to sort out, not an industry-wide problem.

Celine · Apr 6, 2024

Separating Nintendo from the twins:

In 2024 Switch will continue decline from the 2023 result, PS5 has almost assuredly hit its peak in 2023 and could be ahead of a double digit decline YoY, XBS is having a so so gen with HW sales that have already started declining from a supposed peak in 2022 amid several whispers of Microsoft ready to de-emphasize the proprietary console side in favour of a stronger multiplaform push.

GodlyTrident · Apr 6, 2024

People bring Switch as an argument that "Nintendo is doing great" but the thing is that Nintendo used to have multiple 100m+ sellers with portables like DS while also having consoles like Wii...Now they only have Switch. Nintendo is doing simply because the games they make are not as expensive as the games you usually see on PS/Xbox/PC.

But overall the console market is basically down due to some folks pivoting to PC and some others pivoting to mobile.

Circana - U.S. Video Game Industry Sales - February 2024 (Dollars, Millions) Reporting Period: 2/4/2024 through 3/2/2024 (4 weeks)	Feb-23	Feb-24	Change
Total Video Game Sales	$4,636	$4,714	2%
Video Game Content (Physical & Digital Full Game, DLC/MTX and Subscription consumer spending across Console, Cloud, Mobile*, Portable, PC and VR platforms)	$3,962	$4,146	5%
Video Game Hardware	$498	$349	-30%
Video Game Accessories	$175	$219	45%

Circana - U.S. Video Game Industry Sales - February 2023 (Dollars, Millions) Reporting Period: 12/30/2023 through 3/2/2024 (9 weeks)	YTD End Feb 2023	YTD End Feb 2024	Change
Total Video Game Sales	$9,058	$9,783	8%
Video Game Content (Physical & Digital Full Game, DLC/MTX and Subscription consumer spending across Console, Cloud, Mobile*, Portable, PC, and VR platforms)	$7,819	$8,590	10%
Video Game Hardware	$894	$727	-19%
Video Game Accessories	$345	$465	35%

Rank	Prior Month	Game	Publisher	Weeks in Tracking
1	NEW	Helldivers II	Sony (Corp)	4
2	NEW	Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth	Square Enix Inc (Corp)	1
3	1	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023)	Activision Blizzard (Corp)	-
4	NEW	Skull and Bones	Ubisoft	3
5	2	Tekken 8	Bandai Namco Entertainment	-
6	5	Madden NFL 24 [EA Sports]	Electronic Arts	-
7	3	Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League	Warner Bros. Games	-
8	NEW	Final Fantasy VII: Remake & Rebirth Twin Pack	Square Enix Inc (Corp)	1
9	4	P3: Persona 3: Reload [Shin Megami Tensei]	Multiple Video Game Manufacturers	-
10	6	Hogwarts Legacy	Warner Bros. Games	-
11	NEW	Mario vs. Donkey Kong (2024)*	Nintendo	3
12	8	EA Sports FC 24	Electronic Arts	-
13	10	Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (Sony)	Sony (Corp)	-
14	14	Elden Ring	Bandai Namco Entertainment	-
15	11	Super Mario Bros Wonder*	Nintendo	-
16	17	Minecraft	Multiple Video Game Manufacturers	-
17	18	Mario Kart 8*	Nintendo	-
18	15	Mortal Kombat 1	Warner Bros. Games	-
19	21	Rainbow Six: Siege [Tom Clancy's]	Ubisoft	-
20	12	Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora	Ubisoft	-

Rank	Prior Month	Game	Publisher	Weeks in Tracking
1	NEW	Helldivers II	Sony (Corp)	4
2	1	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023)	Activision Blizzard (Corp)	-
3	2	Tekken 8	Bandai Namco Entertainment	6
4	NEW	Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth	Square Enix Inc (Corp)	1
5	3	Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League	Warner Bros. Games	5
6	5	Madden NFL 24 [EA Sports]	Electronic Arts	-
7	4	P3: Persona 3: Reload [Shin Megami Tensei]	Multiple Video Game Manufacturers	5
8	6	Hogwarts Legacy	Warner Bros. Games	-
9	NEW	Skull and Bones	Ubisoft	3
10	8	EA Sports FC 24	Electronic Arts	-
11	10	Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (Sony)	Sony (Corp)	-
12	7	Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth	Sega	6
13	9	The Last of Us: Part II	Sony (Corp)	-
14	11	Super Mario Bros Wonder*	Nintendo	-
15	14	Elden Ring	Bandai Namco Entertainment	-
16	NEW	Final Fantasy VII: Remake & Rebirth Twin Pack	Square Enix Inc (Corp)	1
17	12	Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora	Ubisoft	-
18	17	Minecraft	Multiple Video Game Manufacturers	-
19	15	Mortal Kombat 1	Warner Bros. Games	-
20	18	Mario Kart 8*	Nintendo	-

Rank	Prior Month	Game	Publisher	Weeks in Tracking
1	NEW	Helldivers II	Sony (Corp)	4
2	NEW	Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth	Square Enix Inc (Corp)	1
3	1	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023)	Activision Blizzard (Corp)	-
4	NEW	Final Fantasy VII: Remake & Rebirth Twin Pack	Square Enix Inc (Corp)	1
5	NEW	Skull and Bones	Ubisoft	3
6	5	Madden NFL 24 [EA Sports]	Electronic Arts	-
7	3	Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League	Warner Bros. Games	-
8	2	Tekken 8	Bandai Namco Entertainment	-
9	7	Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (Sony)	Sony (Corp)	-
10	4	P3: Persona 3: Reload [Shin Megami Tensei]	Multiple Video Game Manufacturers	-

Rank	Prior Month	Game	Publisher	Weeks in Tracking
1	1	Fortnite	Epic Games	-
2	2	Call of Duty HQ*	Activision	-
3	3	Grand Theft Auto V (Remastered)	Rockstar Games	-
4	5	NBA 2K24	2K Sports	-
5	6	Madden NFL 24 [EA Sports]	Electronic Arts	-
6	4	Roblox	Roblox Corporation	-
7	NEW	Helldivers II	Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios	4
8	8	Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (Sony)	Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.	-
9	11	Apex Legends	Electronic Arts	-
10	12	Minecraft	Mojang Studios, Xbox Game Studios	-

Rank	Prior Month	Game	Publisher	Weeks in Tracking
1	NEW	Helldivers II	Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios	4
2	1	Palworld	Pocket Pair Inc.	-
3	3	Counter-Strike 2	Valve	-
4	2	Lethal Company	Zeekerss	-
5	4	Baldur's Gate III	Larian Studios	-
6	7	Enshrouded	Keen Games	-
7	113	Last Epoch	Eleventh Hour Games	-
8	6	Rocket League	Psyonix	-
9	5	The Finals	Embark Studios	-
10	16	Elden Ring	Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.	-

Akira Toriyama passed away

Circana February 2024: #1 Helldivers 2 #2 FF7 Rebirth #4 Skull and Bones #8 FF7 Twin Pack; PS5 #1 Units+Rev, Switch #2 Units Xbox #2 Rev [UP in OP]

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Former lurker

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Asano stan

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Asano stan