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[donny2112]

Much greater weekend legs than normal => Cosmic Guide and How-To DVD making a strong impact with expanded audience players?

Edit:
It's obviously problematic to use Famitsu 1st-day numbers with MC weekly numbers, so hopefully, we'll get Famitsu 1st-week numbers soon, too, to compare apples to apples.

 

[Pureauthor]

YAY SMG2

YAY

 

[BowieZ]

So 133% improvement.

But by what percentage has the Japanese Wii install base increased in the last 2½ years?

EDIT:

January 20 2008 - 5,019,337
February 28 2010 - 10,007,736
(courtesy MCV)

 

[Spiegel]

Peace Walker will past MGS4's LTD next week.

It's showing legs and hasn't had any major price drop. Pretty nice.

Much greater weekend legs than normal => Cosmic Guide and How-To DVD making a strong impact with expanded audience players?

Or wrong estimated first days sales.

It has been said that the first day numbers we get are estimated from a considerably smaller number of stores.

 

[gerg]

Much greater weekend legs than normal => Cosmic Guide and How-To DVD making a strong impact with expanded audience players?

Perhaps.

But Nintendo made lots of changes to the game to try and make it more appealing to the expanded audience, such as the new World Map, the lack of a Hub World, and the help videos scattered throughout levels.

I was also under the impression that SMG2 had a greater focus on 2D levels than the first game, but that may be wrong.

So 133% improvement.

But by what percentage has the Japanese Wii install base increased in the last 2½ years?

It shouldn't matter, surely?

Game sales don't scale linearly with install bases.

 

[donny2112]

Or wrong estimated first days sales.

It has been said that the first day numbers we get are estimated from a considerably smaller number of stores.

They're not that much worse. I've only seen that mentioned with really low sales like when a 1000 first day turns into a 1000 first week.

Edit:
Besides, we're still comparing Famitsu and MC numbers.

 

[schuelma]

Not too shabby Mario, not too shabby. Guess I should have waited on my Galaxy 2 is doomed post

 

[BowieZ]

It shouldn't matter, surely?

Game sales don't scale linearly with install bases.

I don't know that it "matters" but surely one would hope the big Mario game would get more sales when 10 million people own consoles than when under 5 million do.

 

[Celine]

smg first week 256.341
smg2 first week 340.000

 

[Spiegel]

They're not that much off. I've only seen that mentioned with really low sales like when a 1000 first day turns into a 1000 first week.

Sometimes they overestimate. So I guess they can also underestimate.
Lately it happened with Peace Walker and DQMJ2(?). At least that's what the blog where we get the numbers said that week and they really had a unusual first day(two days)/week ratio.

Not saying that's what happened, though

 

[FINALFANTASYDOG]

Again as I've mentioned several times throughout the past weeks, Evangelion made 360K on BD alone for the week. don't count PS3 out this week just yet

 

[Nirolak]

So a bunch of North American and European retailers dropped the price of the Wii by $50/£50, even for the version that's bundled with Wii Sports Resort.

I was curious, has anyone here seen Japanese stores doing the same thing?

 

[Sadist]

Go Mario GO

 

[Galang]

Really nice improvement for SMG2

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Still curious how it will compare to SMG overall. On the one hand, it certainly shouldn't be getting that ~week 8 bump like the first had, so it might fall behind.

Buuut as has been repeatedly pointed out Mario games have huge legs overall so it might just end up kissing a million with a different shape.

 

[Kurosaki Ichigo]

Again as I've mentioned several times throughout the past weeks, Evangelion made 360K on BD alone for the week. don't count PS3 out this week just yet

360k? Wasn't BR market for anime like 30-50k debuts for the highest?

Hell, that's more than FF7+FF13 demo which did 275k.

PD: Btw, are those inside-games numbers reliable for rounding? Could do the predictions results if it is.

 

[duckroll]

360k? Wasn't BR market for anime like 30-50k debuts for the highest?

Hell, that's more than FF7+FF13 demo which did 275k.

PD: Btw, are those inside-games numbers reliable for rounding? Could do the predictions results if it is.

The best selling Blu-ray movie in Japan to date was Michael Jackson's This is It. It sold 351k in total. Eva 2.22 sold 357k in the first week, beating that record. The DVD for Eva 2.22 sold 283k, bringing the total sales of Eva 2.22 to a staggering 640k in the first week. Well over the combined DVD and BD sales of the previous Eva movie.

 

[donny2112]

PD: Btw, are those inside-games numbers reliable for rounding? Could do the predictions results if it is.

The MC threads are made off of them, so they should be good.

 

[wrowa]

360k? Wasn't BR market for anime like 30-50k debuts for the highest?

Well, it's Evangelion and not just some random anime series. It still remains one of the most popular animes even today - and in contrast to Eva 1.0 the second movie is actually quite good on top of that.

 

[cvxfreak]

Very happy with Galaxy 2's debut, and better than expected from the first day sales.

I'm not holding my breath about its legs, and I still expect it to do around Sunshine levels, but it's a nice debut regardless.

 

[duckroll]

Well, it's Evangelion and not just some random anime series. It still remains one of the most popular animes even today - and in contrast to Eva 1.0 the second movie is actually quite good on top of that.

Eva 2.22's performance is very surprising even given Eva's popularity. Within the first month, Eva 2.22 will have outsold Ponyo in home video numbers. There's some insane growth happening in Rebuild, which means the plan to expand the userbase well beyond just the same old fans with the remakes is VERY successful now.

 

[Kurosaki Ichigo]

Congrats to MemoirsofMimi and Orgen!

Results  	By Units  	 	By Points  	
1 	11865 	MemoirsofMimi 		9,35% 	Orgen 	
2 	14000 	Kurosaki Ichigo 	11,69% 	MemoirsofMimi 	
3 	14456 	Chris1964 		11,82% 	iifu 	
4 	19000 	Orgen 			13,00% 	Kurosaki Ichigo 	
5 	21000 	iifu 			15,81% 	Chris1964 	
6 	30000 	Road 			35,64% 	onken 	
7 	41000 	onken 			36,70% 	donny2112 	
8 	54000 	donny2112 		42,70% 	Road 	
9 	61000 	schuelma 		49,10% 	jj984jj 	
10 	70704 	jj984jj 		50,05% 	schuelma 	
			 	
05/24-05/30 	Sales 	Chris 	Orgen 	donny 	iifu 	Memoi 	Road 	jj984 	Kuro 	onken 	schue 	
NDS SRT:TLOE 	81000 	76543 	85000 	85000 	75000 	80123 	88000 	60975 	77000 	65000 	65000 	
NDS Sakatsuku 	50000 	54321 	50000 	60000 	50000 	54321 	66000 	55555 	47000 	55000 	40000 	
WII Galaxy2 	340000 	345678 	325000 	300000 	325000 	333333 	333000 	385124 	347000 	360000 	375000 	

Difference 	0 	14456 	19000 	54000 	21000 	11865 	30000 	70704 	14000 	41000 	61000 	
Difference (%) 	0,00% 	15,81% 	9,35% 	36,70% 	11,82% 	11,69% 	42,70% 	49,10% 	13,00% 	35,64% 	50,05% 	

NDS SRT:TLOE 	0 	-4457 	4000 	4000 	-6000 	-877 	7000 	-20025 	-4000 	-16000 	-16000 	
NDS Sakatsuku 	0 	4321 	0 	10000 	0 	4321 	16000 	5555 	-3000 	5000 	-10000 	
WII Galaxy2 	0 	5678 	-15000 	-40000 	-15000 	-6667 	-7000 	45124 	7000 	20000 	35000

Past Predictions Results:
04/26-05/02 Predictions Results
02/22-02/28 Predictions Results
01/25-01/31 Predictions Results

 

[donny2112]

I still expect it to do around Sunshine levels,

Still wish we had the Famitsu 1st-week numbers, but mixing MC and Famitsu...

SMG2 - 340K / 790K (43%)

Edit:
Basically, you're expecting the worst legs for a platformer Mario game, by far, for a game that has already shown stronger than normal legs in its first week.

 

[poppabk]

I don't know that it "matters" but surely one would hope the big Mario game would get more sales when 10 million people own consoles than when under 5 million do.

Its a bad idea to head down that road, unless you want to start looking at every sequel as a failure.

 

[Tiktaalik]

I'm not sure that the first week improvement from Galaxy 1 to 2 is an indicator of anything significant.

 

[Chris1964]

Why so early this week? Holiday tomorrow in Japan?

 

[selig]

So, SMG2 did a bit better than my prediction of 250k. Still, I dont see it having "that much" legs now. 500k for the rest of the year, maybe closing in to 600k. But still worse than SMG1.

 

[Kurosaki Ichigo]

The best selling Blu-ray movie in Japan to date was Michael Jackson's This is It. It sold 351k in total. Eva 2.22 sold 357k in the first week, beating that record. The DVD for Eva 2.22 sold 283k, bringing the total sales of Eva 2.22 to a staggering 640k in the first week. Well over the combined DVD and BD sales of the previous Eva movie.

Color me surprised, didn't think eva would be back at full force. Guess we'll have eva pachislot for another decade. Maybe this time I will understand something out of the frickin' mess of a plot too!

 

[neutralgamer02]

25k for PW is pretty good. Small drop from last week could mean legs are starting to show.

At about ~700k, it should sell through the 800k shipment in a couple of weeks.

 

[BowieZ]

Its a bad idea to head down that road, unless you want to start looking at every sequel as a failure.

Who said anything about failure? It's just worth noting that since SMG's release, Wii ownership in Japan has more than doubled, so a marginal increase in sales is surely expected: or rather, let's put it this way: the game really had no excuse to sell less than SMG1.

 

[cvxfreak]

Still wish we had the Famitsu 1st-week numbers, but mixing MC and Famitsu...

SMG2 - 340K / 790K (43%)

Edit:
Basically, you're expecting the worst legs for a platformer Mario game, by far, for a game that has already shown stronger than normal legs in its first week.

"First week" contradicts "legs" in the sales-age context. You can't have legs when you only have one week of sales to go by. The only thing you have to go by is the first day to first week ratio, but even that's too short a time period.

Besides, we've been over this. NSMB Wii will steal its sales and cut its legs off in due time. That's my prediction and this doesn't change that yet. We saw how much Spirit Track's higher debut than Phantom Hourglass meant in the end.

 

[duckroll]

Color me surprised, didn't think eva would be back at full force. Guess we'll have eva pachislot for another decade. Maybe this time I will understand something out of the frickin' mess of a plot too!

I think most people are surprised. Personally I want to see what the huge home video sales are going to do for the third theatrical release. Eva 1.0 had a pretty limited release in cinemas, and made 15 million or so in the box office. Eva 2.0 had a more expanded release, and made 40 million in the box office (almost 3x!). It'll certainly be interesting to see if they manage to get Eva 3.0 distributed in an actual wide release that major films get.

 

[Spiegel]

25k for PW is pretty good. Small drop from last week could mean legs are starting to show.

At about ~700k, it should sell through the 800k shipment in a couple of weeks.

Media Create had the shipment at ~764k

http://neogaf.net/forum/showpost.php?p=21156052&postcount=63

I'm glad I was wrong and the game didn't end being the new MH3/FFXIII/Zelda:ST.

 

[onken]

Nice first week for SMG2.

Also, is this the first week since release that NSMB Wii isn't in the top 10?

 

[poppabk]

Who said anything about failure? It's just worth noting that since SMG's release, Wii ownership in Japan has more than doubled, so a marginal increase in sales is surely expected: or rather, let's put it this way: the game really had no excuse to sell less than SMG1.

Using install base to evaluate sales is just a bad idea though, sequels can and do perform below their predecessors even though they have a much larger installed base, which SMG2 will mostly still do unless it manages to become an evergreen title.

 

[noobie]

Media Create had the shipment at ~764k

http://neogaf.net/forum/showpost.php?p=21156052&postcount=63

I'm glad I was wrong and the game didn't end being the new MH3/FFXIII/Zelda:ST.

question is can it crawl to a million. :|

 

[BowieZ]

Using install base to evaluate sales is just a bad idea though, sequels can and do perform below their predecessors even though they have a much larger installed base, which SMG2 will mostly still do unless it manages to become an evergreen title.

But we're talking Mario here. You think it will ultimately sell less than SMG1??

EDIT: Anyway, the point is, these 3D Mario games shouldn't be this low, period, regardless of the minutiae of how they perform in comparison with each other. In my opinion at least.

 

[wrowa]

But we're talking Mario here. You think it will ultimately sell less than SMG1??

That's definitely possible. SMG1 got a nice holiday boost, that's something SMG2 can't hope for.

 

[donny2112]

"First week" contradicts "legs" in the sales-age context.

If we didn't have a first-day number, you'd be correct.

The only thing you have to go by is the first day to first week ratio, but even that's too short a time period.

If we didn't have a lot of historical first day to first week sales changes to go by, you'd be correct.

Besides, we've been over this. NSMB Wii will steal its sales and cut its legs off in due time.

Very possible. It's still ridiculous (to me, anyways) to expect that SMG2 will have the worst legs for the platformer series, by far, when all the data we do have contradicts it.

 

[cvxfreak]

If we didn't have a first-day number, you'd be correct.

If we didn't have a lot of historical first day to first week sales changes to go by, you'd be correct.

Very possible. It's still ridiculous (to me, anyways) to expect that SMG2 will have the worst legs for the platformer series, by far, when all the data we do have contradicts it.

You told me that you don't only take historical trends into account and that saying you do is a huge simplification. However, you're not making it very easy for me to believe you right now.

 

[donny2112]

You told me that you don't only take historical trends into account and that saying you do is a huge simplification. However, you're not making it very easy for me to believe you right now.

It's easier to make a point with numbers. That's one of the draws of Sales-Age to me. Instead of discussing the effectiveness of the Cosmic Guide on getting expanded audience members to take a shot at Galaxy 2 when they skipped Galaxy 1, because it was too hard, we can look at percentage growths for weekend and whatever happens to subsequent weeks to see how it compares.

On the non-number side of the discussion (i.e. subjective and not as clear cut):

• Spirit Tracks stunk as a Zelda game. Phantom Hourglass wasn't greatly better, but it at least had the advantage of being the first Zelda on DS and using the features of the DS well. Therefore, word of mouth was at worst probably generally neutral for the game. I can't imagine Spirit Tracks doing so well.
• SMG2 by all accounts is at least as excellent a game as Galaxy 1, if not moreso. That wouldn't make too great a difference, in my opinion, for Japanese sales on its own, as the apparently fundamental problem with Galaxy wouldn't have been addressed (i.e. difficulty of controlling Mario in 3-D space). However with the (hilariously) lambasted Guide mode in the game, I think this has a good chance of luring in some players who have a huge soft spot for Mario, at the moment, thanks to NSMBWii. They can at least see what the game has to offer rather than plunking down Yen for a game they don't get past the first Galaxy in. Maybe even the 2-D sections help, but I really think the Cosmic Guide (and DVD telling them about the Cosmic Guide that can be passed on to friends to watch at their leisure) could be having a very positive impact.
• Sort of numbers: Nintendo doesn't let their flagship Mario games sink. They had words with retailers who tried to drop the price on SMG shortly after launch, and pulled out comparisons to NSMB DS to prop up flagging SMG sales in 2007. Nintendo didn't send this out on its own and will just sit back and watch if it's flagging. Nintendo, who've been showing the desire to advertise more heavily when a game is actually available than in the lead-up to a game, isn't going to stop ads after this week. The more heavily they can feature the DVD/Cosmic Guide, the better.

It's much easier to do discussions in non-subjective terms, but I do filter number arguments through those subjective ideas before putting the number arguments out there. Obviously, that doesn't show up in the post, though.

 

[Jokeropia]

SMG2 340k

Nice.

We saw how much Spirit Track's higher debut than Phantom Hourglass meant in the end.

I don't think it's quite comparable since Spirit Tracks released at the peak of the winter holiday season and it stands to reason that it would have a higher first week to LTD ratio.

25k for PW is pretty good. Small drop from last week could mean legs are starting to show.

At about ~700k, it should sell through the 800k shipment in a couple of weeks.

Media Create had the shipment at ~764k

http://neogaf.net/forum/showpost.php...2&postcount=63

I'm glad I was wrong and the game didn't end being the new MH3/FFXIII/Zelda:ST.

In it's fifth week, MH3 sold 34k as it decreased 32% from the week prior and reached 836k, 88% of Media-Create's estimated first week shipment.
In it's fifth week, if PW sells 25k it has decreased 29% from the week prior and reached 697k, 91% of Media-Create's estimated first week shipment.

So, SMG2 did a bit better than my prediction of 250k. Still, I dont see it having "that much" legs now. 500k for the rest of the year, maybe closing in to 600k

SMS (currently the shortest legged Mario platformer) launched 70k lower, released over one month later in the year and still reached 677k before the year ended. Do you really think SMG2 will perform that much worse?

 

[Spiegel]

I was talking about the MAJOR discounts that those games had soon after the release.

 

[ccbfan]

In it's fifth week, MH3 sold 34k as it decreased 32% from the week prior and reached 836k, 88% of Media-Create's estimated first week shipment.
In it's fifth week, if PW sells 25k it has decreased 29% from the week prior and reached 697k, 91% of Media-Create's estimated first week shipment.

I think he meant more in terms of getting to bomba prices. Wasn't MH3 like half off after the first week.

 

[donny2112]

Do you really think SMG2 will perform that much worse?

I think he meant an additional 500-600K over the first week numbers.

I think he meant more in terms of getting to bomba prices. Wasn't MH3 like half off after the first week.

For the standalone only (and that later went back up), and I think it was later than immediately after the first week (e.g. like after the second week :lol ).