February 2016 NPD: PS4 Extends Its Lead as US Sales Shrink

PS4 is really selling good..Let us see what e3 has in store.

Wow, that's a great result for Naruto at least. Great game, deserves it.

Overall industry sales aren't looking particulary good, this isn't the first month we see sales slipping year over year. A friend of mine had an explanation for it last December I believe and he blamed the lower attach rate of (American) Playstation owners when compared to Xbox owners. At that time that sounded somewhat plausible, less people could enjoy Halo 5, Forza 6 and Tomb Raider as compared to in the more succesful 360 era, whereas 360 games go downhill quickly, but it can't account for months like these. If his theory would indeed be true, that would mean that either the 360 owners that jumped shipped buy less games now, or lots of 360 owners are waiting to purchase a new console and just the PS3 owners upgraded, which seems highly unlikely.

It's a slightly worrying little detail in a month where PS won again gracefully and to be honest it's getting a bit awkward now. If you look at Xbox One's last half of 2015, with all their marketing, their BC, their exclusives, the Elite controller and the new UI (which I hate btw), you would've expect them to have gained some goodwill in their largest market, their home market.... The opposite seems to be the case. Playstation did such an excellent job weathering Xbox' exclusives "storm", that in the end it wasn't more than a gust of wind and now it's clearly Sony's move in 2016 with the upcoming PS VR and exciting line up, I can't see PS4s dominance ending soon.

I believe we might see a Xbox Two sooner than we would've expected 2 years ago, or some MS Steam Machine like contraption for that matters, because I think just like Nintendo they need a full reset to stop this juggernaut.

Street Fighter V didn't have a very good debut at retail. The Steam version is at about 125k worldwide, so yeah.

On a side note, Fire Emblem Fates is #3 on the chart if you combine all three SKUs (Conquest, Birthright, SE). Fates sold just under 400k in the US including digital sales.

Congrats to Nintendo on Fates' success, and congrats to Sony for another leading month in hardware.

I'll be interested to see SF V's position once its patched up. I could see the game climbing higher in a few months with new updates but I can also see people just not giving a sh*t. Either way, I still think that despite the fact it's exclusive, that SF V should've been more popular than it is. Street Fighter is not a no-name franchise and Halo 5, as disappointing as that game was to me as a long-time fan of the series, on a console with a smaller userbase managed to top the charts in its debut month during a busier time of year. Capcom could've had a big hit had it been smarter but again, there's a reason this company, like SquareEnix, has fallen from legendary status to begging for handouts.

@Boerewors
I don't think there's anything awkward at all. I expected MS to gain ground in the second half of last year but I'm not stunned it hasn't happened either. For one, people act like Xbox has always dominated the U.S. but that couldn't be further from the truth. People in North America like PlayStation as much as people in other parts of the world. PSone dominated its era, PS2 was even more dominant and had it not been for Sony's complete stupidity with how it handled the early days of PS3, it would be batting 4-for-4 here. This market is very fickle however as evidenced by the jump from Nintendo to Sega at the start of the 16-gen, then back to Nintendo mid-way through that era, then to Sony for two gens, last-gen if was Nintendo then MS caught it at the end, now it's back to Sony. A major key to success here seems to be first impressions though, and lets be real, the Xbox One's first impression was as terrible as it gets. I never thought anything would be worse than Sega's 'surprise' Saturn launch but then Sony topped it with $599 U.S. dollars and MS took it a step further by basically telling consumers at the E3 2013 that they were going to bend us over without the lube and we were going to like it. The question can now be asked to MS. How does it feel to have the supposed to be victim flip the script on you? I know people love Phil Spencer for whatever silly reason and praise MS for being all consumer friendly but I still remember what happened in 2013. I like the Xbox One but MS deserved and still deserves all the bad press. These companies need to be kept in check. The same goes for Sony. The fact people let things like no external harddrive support for PS4 slide is extremely disappointing.

Street Fighter V sold < 210k according to NPD. Using Steamspy's worldwide numbers and a bit of math, NeoGaf users have figured out that the NA numbers for the PC version are ~56k.

This means that PS4 digital sales would have to be at least 100k to come close to Fire Emblem Fates.

We now live in a world where Fire Emblem outsells Street Fighter in North America. Crazy.

Software sales are showing a worrying trend but I have to wonder how much of this is offset by presumably increasing digital sales. I personally seem to have a 50/50 split in physical and digital AAA games, which was unthinkable for me a couple of years ago. Or maybe it's simply gamers being more wary of titles released in unfinished states, whether it be that they don't run particularly well or as is the case with Street Fighter that half of the game is missing. We're all disappointed when the likes of Uncharted are delayed but surely this is better than having a buggy game or many of it's features missing. I can't help but feel that Street Fighter V would have done so much better had Capcom simply waited until the game was ready, seemingly they learnt nothing from the PS4 port of its predecessor and it still makes me laugh when I see the words "full game" over its price on the PS store.

As many have said it's already clear that Xbox simply won't catch up, it threw it's biggest shots before Christmas and caused barely a wobble to Sony and with this year's line up the gap will only increase. I do wish the 2 companies would work together to allow more possibilities for cross platform play, even if you're just limited to a few friends.

@Neolit
Yeah, it's GTA so good sales were expected but I would've figured it'd be out of the top 10 by now, and if it was still hanging around it would be just barely hanging on like at 9 or 10.

With sales this low and wonder if will ever see a "finished" SFV.

Lest be honest, the games releasing in the first couple of months are hardly 'great' or must haves. Last January may have had a few remasters etc like Saints Row 4, Resident Evil, Grim Fandngo... But it also had Dying Light and Life is Strange (not my kind of game but well received). February had Evolve (maybe not great but did have a lot of hype), The Order 1886 and RE: Revelations with Bloodbourne due in March which may have impacted on sales as people bought Hardware in readiness.
Personally I have found the start to this year far more slow and less appealing - maybe others see it differently - but I can't see many rushing out to buy a console and/or the game releases during the first couple of months. March this year seems to be picking up a bit with the Division (breaking Ubisofts sales record) and April has Dark Souls 3, Ratchet & Clank. May has U4, Doom, Mirrors Edge so we could see a rise in sales over the next few months.
Hardware sales maybe dropping but people could be holding off to get 'certain' games or to see how VR etc fits in. You have to look beyond just 'numbers' when comparing sales figures between one year and the next. I guess that current gen consoles would slow - unless some 'big' software or maybe even a must have peripheral releases to encourage people to part with cash.

@Grawlog @Grawlog Sony has stated many times they have no problem with third party games that share an online world between xbox and ps players. Problem is, microsoft will not allow it, and that reason alone is why they never got FF14.

@Gamer83 GTA5 has had a ridiculously long life, just insane really. I mean the game was good, but far from great IMO. I think it has alot to do with new adopters of the ps4 and x1. Whenever someone buys one of these new gen consoles, GTA5 is almost a must buy at this point, continuing it's sales domination. I actually don't like it because I feel like it has made it so Rock Star doesn't real have to worry about finishing up any other games, as long as it keeps selling so well. I need Red Dead 3 in my life immediately!

As an ex 360 owner I can say I don't buy game's anymore for console's saving my money for another platform, i'll keep my ps4 for the occasional console game I want. No Man's Sky is the only one I am getting for certain maybe DS3 but I doubt it. I won't be playing console game's on my PC....ever. The only reason PS has done so well this gen is because the X1 sucked, like it or not that's a fact.

"There's not much else to say these days, is there?"

Well, I would like to see actual hardware sales numbers, since you asked.

I know MS doesn't share hardware info, but really, its 2016, can't somebody extrapolate some numbers from somewhere? How many retailers sell Xbox Ones? Amazon, Gamsetop, Best Buy, Walmart, Target and a few smaller ones w/ limited quantities. I mean, it's videogame hardware, we usually round to the 1 million anyway, so it doens't have to be exact.

I do think w/ U4 and FFXV coming out this year PS4 will keep selling. I know X1 will get FFXV also, but it must sell better on Sony hardware. And PSVR could give it a small boost. I don't see how MS can match what Sony offers. And after 2 years on sale, momentum matters, gamers buy what their friends buy. I don't see X1 sales catching on fire.

@Gamer83 To be fair, I think most of us don't care for external HDD support, and a few of us (like me) think its a bad idea, not just something I have absolutely no use for, but a legitimately bad idea. There are all sorts of reasons for this, but my point is that its not about us "letting Sony slide", its about it not actually being something that matters to most. I feel the same on my end with wanting to be able to delete trophies, but no one else seems to care, so I know my complaints fall on deaf ears.

@SonyInfinity This is important to keep in mind. I often hear complaints about this, and more often than not its either aimed at Sony, or at both Sony and MS. The people not understanding that Sony fully allows cross play between competitors platforms, but Microsoft doesn't, not even, for the most part, with their own Windows ecosystem!

Nice 1 SONY +It would be cool if Nintendo came up with a really cool next console because Microsoft have just run out of ideas now and it seems as they didn't get their way with DRM'ing all their Fans with the Xbox ONE they seem to have lost the will to do anything good with the Xbox ONE this Gen.

@IceClimbers Fire Emblem is one of the few good things on 3DS. Meanwhile, Street Fighter V has really terrible word of mouth. Nintendo did something right while Capcom failed badly, and the sales reflect this.

@Carl-G Haha, well said!

@thedevilsjester
I certainly care about getting external HDD support- running out of space is no small issue. Xbox One can support up to a combined 4.5 TB, Wii U can support 2.032 TB I think (but with small game sizes and no mandatory installations, you'd be hard pressed to ever reach 500 GB, if that) and 3DS can support SD "officially" up to 32 GB and unofficially (just format to FAT32) as high as they make SD cards, so maybe 256 GB. PS4 and Vita are the only platforms I own where I actually have to deal with this issue, which is a shame considering Sony is the market leader.

Vita caps off at 64 GB (for $80-100 I might add), which I maxed out over a year ago and now must resort to musical chairs with my game installs. As for PS4, you have to unscrew the cover, buy a 9mm 2.5" internal HDD (hope people are tech savvy enough to understand the differences, otherwise good luck buying one that fits) and swap out internally. Of course that means reinstalling all your games again, it means reinstalling the OS from USB (oh and better back up those save files on USB too), and all of that trouble just to upgrade to the current max of 2 TB, which 2.5 years into the generation I have now almost completely maxed out (247 GB space left).

What am I going to do when that runs out? It's going to happen this year- that much is certain. This is a serious problem and it needs to be addressed. Granted, I buy more games than most so I'm probably one of the first to encounter this issue (then again, most people are still using their stock 500 MB HDD so perhaps not), but sooner or later most PS4 owners are going to have to face this issue. I can't imagine anyone not taking this as a priority.

As for saying its a "bad idea", I'd sure be interested to hear why that is.

@Mahe
"Fire Emblem is one of the few good things in 3DS"

Oh it's amazing for sure- not just Awakening but all 3 iterations of Fates is absolutely glorious- perhaps the finest handheld titles ever made. But I think the 3DS library is poppin' to be perfectly honest. Monster Hunter will soon score a hat trick with Generations this July, Stella Glow is an absolutely fantastic SRPG (can't touch Fire Emblem but it's the next best thing), you've got your classics like Smash Bros (a full console title) and Mario Kart 8, remakes of both N64 Zelda titles and a sequel to Link to the Past that is easily my fave handheld Zelda to date, there's Xenoblade Chronicles and Kid Icarus Uprising, Star Fox 64 3D and DKC Returns, and a pretty nice spread of 3rd party like Street Fighter 4 Ultra, RE Revelations and Kingdom Hearts 3D. Lots more on the way this year too.

I've really grown attached to my 3DS- Fire Emblem and Monster Hunter games alone could power me through a generation

@JaxonH My point was that this is not a feature that everyone wants, nor cares about. There are obviously people that do, but saying that we are "giving Sony a pass" is just not true, since a feature that "X person" wants, doesn't necessarily translate into "everyone wants" no matter how many people you can get to agree with you on the internet. A lesson that I continue to remind myself.

As for the reason I think its a terrible idea, this is outside of the scope of this conversation, and I don't intend to debate this again, but if you are curious: firstly we have two USB ports, mine are already always in use, but assuming they were not (a USB hub is not worth it, its one of the reasons I have a console and not a PC), having a HDD dangling/sitting-on-top-of is ugly visually, and a nice target for cats. Why does this matter? I can simply opt to not use them, right? Wrong. As PS4 HDD's fill up, we will get to a point where developers at least think twice about the size of the game or patches. They are already very lazy about this as is. If we increase the availability of storage to external solutions, then they will get even lazier. Its just how it works, we get more space, they fill it faster, so we get more space, so they fill it even faster, and so on. It will stop even becoming a conversation. This is why its a terrible idea.

@thedevilsjester
Eh, that's not much of a reason. They're already capping out disc capacity as is- there isn't much more size they can add.

But even if they did somehow "start making games bigger" at least we'd have all the room we need to store it, as opposed to now where it fills up in 2 years.

@JaxonH (current) BluRay has a maximum capacity of 50 GB, and most (AAA) games tend to have an install size of about 20-25 GB with a few going into the 30 and a few big hitters reaching 40+. We still have room for growth even here, and then imagine how much a single 50 GB BluRay could "install to" if the data were decently compressed? We could be looking at ~100 GB games if we are not careful.

As for "all the room we need to store it" just delete games off of your HDD. It takes literally less than a minute for most of those AAA games to install to the HDD from the retail disc, and then if your internet connection is decent, less than an hour to install the patches, its typically a few minutes for me unless its a huge game like Fallout/Dragon Age, etc... (and the best part is you can do this while you play another game!). If your argument is for "digital purchases", then it falls on deaf ears.

@thedevilsjester

"Just delete games off of your HDD."

No, that's exactly the problem. I shouldn't have to play musical chairs with my game installs. It's a huge inconvenience, and if they ever take something off the servers and it's deleted at the time I lose it.

That may not bother you and that's fine- if you don't see running out of space as an issue then continue to ignore it and shuffle installs. But it's a huge issue for me, and many others.

EDIT
And for the record, it's more than "just a few minutes". It can be anywhere from 5-20 minutes- not to mention updates that then need to download (and every game has a crap ton of updates now) and any DLC. And on Vita it's even worse- I've got 60mbps high speed internet and yet still it takes 45 minutes for many games to download.

And that's not to mention the possibility of the servers being down, or internet out, when I want to play.

That's a whole lot of ifs and maybes, on top of what is already a 5-45 minute ordeal. That in no way is acceptable, especially when it's a regular occurrence and not a one time deal. And the longer time goes the more games that can't be installed, and the more they have to be shuffled.

@JaxonH I have a quite a few PS4 games, and an entire family that plays, and I have rarely had to "shuffle installs". Thats hyperbole, or you have a not-so-common situation.

The average (non-nintendo) console gamer has an attach rate of about 10 games (yes, its true), and at 25-50 GB per game, with the default PS4 HDD, that allows for 10-20 games to be installed at the same time. For the majority of gamers, the 500 GB HDD is overkill.

If you are a more hardcore gamer, with dozens of games, you can replace that with a 2 GB HDD (no need for external storage) and now you can support 40-80 games stored at the same time. Even taking into account DLC and updates, thats still way, way, more than most people are ever going to need. And if you do happen to have 40-80 games, surely by game ~60 or so, you will have some games that you have not played in quite awhile that can be deleted, no need to "shuffle".

(Note: There are 6 TB HDD's you can buy for the PS4 right now, and that gets you 120-240 games at the same time)

TL;DR External drive support is unnecessary, since the internal drive support, that already exists, can take drives that are up to 6 TB (and growing) which holds way more games installed at the same time than most gamers would ever even imagine owning, let alone needing to have all of them at their fingertips.

@thedevilsjester

The bottom line is this- I have to shuffle games and play musical chairs and this is the only system I have to do that on. Well this and Vita. And I don't like it and I can assure you that there are many others that don't like it as well. You haven't seen it come to a head yet because people haven't quite yet run out of space, but give it another year or two and you're going to start seeing some serious outrage on the Internet over this. Mark my words.

**EDIT**

And for the record I have exactly 47 physical games on PS4. Now yes that is a lot of games, but, my 2 TB hard drive is basically full. And I have 4x the space as stock hard drives. So in reality you're looking at more like 12 to 15 physical games to max a stock HDD (just do the math and divide my games by 4), that when combined with a few digital purchases and updates, isn't going to leave any space left.

Every other platform out there has at least some kind of option to get enough space. Yet both Sony platforms are hampered by their max capacity. It boggles my mind that anyone would try to defend this like it's not a problem when there are several people even in this very comment section saying, "this is a problem for me". Do a Google search and you'll find people are drilling holes into their PS4's just so they can rig up larger external hard drives. That's not a problem? Guess it's not a problem for you but clearly it's a problem for many others

@JaxonH I think you miss the point in that its not a problem for the vast majority. Its a small, vocal, minority (that seems much larger than it is on the internet) that has the problem. Its just an easy target for people to poke at, even if they don't actually care, or haven't actually done the math (and most that I hear complain about lack of external drive support, haven't even bothered to upgrade the internal drive to 2 TB or more)

47 physical games is nearly 5 times what the average gamer will get over the lifetime of the console, thats more than most "non average gamers" will get. Considering you can currently triple the size of your 2 TB internal HDD, and store every game you own (twice), all installed at once, with the current system, I don't see the problem here. External storage is not going to solve anything that internal storage doesn't already solve. (And in a cleaner, more elegant way that doesn't use up a USB port, and doesn't require attaching additional devices to the console)

@thedevilsjester
"Easy problem for people to poke at"

Now I understand why you're so determined to convince people this isn't a problem. Your mindset is that of "attack and defend". But you're wrong- this is a problem. People aren't all fanboys just looking for reasons- this is a legit issue.

People are vocal because it's an issue. You've already made your mind up Sony can do no wrong, relegating real problems as insignificant jabs of a negligent minority.

No, we who own PS4 are paying customers. And just like those who cry about Nintendo consoles not being region free, people are going to voice their discontent with PS4 as well. This isn't a democracy and you don't need a majority of people to experience the issue for it to be a problem.

If it wasn't a problem, I wouldn't be complaining. Others wouldn't be complaining. You can pretend this isn't really an issue but it is- it most definitely is, and your adamant defense of this pointless bottleneck is no different than those who say region free isn't an issue because "the majority don't care".

_{Language -Tasuki-}

@thedevilsjester
And I'm capped out 2 years into the generation. Serious problem. And by no means am I the only one.

And no, I can't "triple the 2TB HDD" that's the whole problem. 2TB is the max. You can't go higher than that. If you could there wouldn't be an issue. But you can't. They do not sell 9mm internal HDD larger than 2TB

@JaxonH You are arguing a point as a very small minority. The minority voice doesn't matter (nor should they). The average gamer owns 10 titles over the life of the console, which tend to have a lifespan of 7-10 years. Thats one title per year. The average gamer does not buy 50 titles within the first two years (that would average around 250 titles over the lifespan of the console, which is 25 times the average).

Very few actually care about having larger internal HDD's, let alone having external storage. Don't fall into the trap that most do, thinking that because a lot of people on gaming or technology sites agree with you, that your opinion is the opinion of the average gamer, because those that browse these sites, are far, far, from your average gamer.

Personally I have (close) to the same number of retail titles (for my PS4) as you do, with a family of four, using the included 500 GB HDD, and I have not actually ran into this issue yet. I have occasionally had to delete a game, but there has always been a title or two that no one was playing anymore and could be safely deleted.

Edit: To be clear, I am not saying your opinion is wrong (that you need more storage), just that its a minority opinion. My feelings on that are that we should solve the root of the problem (games being too large) rather than treat the symptom, and that adding other storage options would be a detriment to all gamers, for the benefit of the few.

@thedevilsjester

You say minority, but minority could still be millions of PS4 owners. Just google search "PS4 need more space" and look at all the hits about this topic.

And I see no negative effects from actually having enough space on any of the other consoles, so I refuse to believe it would somehow be "detrimental to gamers" on Sony platforms. External Hard drives are like Kinect- unless they know everyone has one they won't restrict their market to only those that do.

@JaxonH External HDDs are nothing like the Kinect, which is an optional device that they have to explicitly target.

This will translate directly into developers being even lazier than they are now, and taking the PC "let them upgrade if they care so much" approach (which is a terrible tactic). Developers know that PS4 users have a minimum of a 500 GB HDD, so as long as their game can fit on that HDD, with room for system files and updates/dlc, then why not use the whole space? What is to stop them from just not caring. You can delete games from your system, or upgrade if you want to keep more games around. A similar thing already happened during the PS3 era. It was even worse with the 360 which had models that could not even play quite a large selection of (retail) games because of the required data install sizes.

If the know that the upgrade path is so simple, that you can just plug an external in, then this "optional feature" will become a required use for even a few games. I do not want such a future to arrive.

@thedevilsjester
Again, that theoretical "potential problem" doesn't exist on any other console. It may sound half plausible on paper, but in actuality it's just not the case. But even if it was, better to have all 50gb games with 6TB of space than 30gb games with 500 GB

@JaxonH Its not theoretical, it has happened many times before in other spaces, and in fact happened in the PS3 era with the PS3, just not so such a large degree.

The launch PS3's were 20 and 60 GB units. At that time, and for quite awhile afterwards, games did not require data to be installed (it was almost always optional). Even when data was installed, it was often 300-500 MB. As the PS3 default HDD's increased (the 80, the 120, and eventually the 300 GB units), so did the number of games that forced you to install data from the disc, and the size of that data grew until it hit an unofficial standard of 4-5 GB. And none of this takes into account DLC or patches, just basic game data from the disc.

This was a snake eating its own tail situation, where HDD's got bigger because developers used more space, so since HDDs are bigger, developers feel they can use more space, so HDDs need to get bigger to compensate. Having been passionate about technology since the advent of game consoles and home PC's, I have seen this cycle happen many, many, times in various areas, so its not some theory, its history. And it will repeat, again, with the PS4 (and be much worse than the PS3 era, since its full games we need to install) if we let it spiral out of control.

@thedevilsjester
It's a different situation now. All games are mandatory installs, and half the games now are capping anyways, and if we're already rubbing out of space as is, can't get any worse.

And besides, you're making assumptions coorelating game size increase with HDD increase, when in reality game sizes just increase as time goes on and developers try to outdo the status quo. Just like inflation, it's naturally occurring and nothing you can do to stop it.

What we CAN do though, is get enough space to actually hold all those games. If you can't prevent the problem, find a solution to it. And not doing anything isn't a solution. And minimizing/ignoring the problem doesn't make it any less real.

@thedevilsjester
Not to mention, you act as if all games are going to magically double in size overnight if Sony actually allows us to upgrade to enough space to hold all out games. That's an extreme, impossible scenario.

Even assuming you're theory proved true, it wouldn't be to that degree.

1) a good percentage of games are already maxing 50gb so those cant be affected

2) not all devs would increase game size, only a percentage, probably very small one

3) of those games that do get increased, why percentage of those will the average consumer end up buying?

4) of those games not already maxing 50gb already, and fall into the percentage of games affected by an increase, and then falling into the percentage of what gamers will end up buying, the increase itself would probably be more like 5 gb, 10gb at most

So the end result is, just guessing here but follow with me- it's the line of thought that matters.

85% of games that are not already capping 50gb or close to are eligible for increase size. Of those remaining games, only 30% are actually affected. And of those remaining games, only 25% ends up in each consumers hands on average. And of those games that do, the average size increase is 7gb.

Do the math, and only 6.3% of games are affected for each person's library, with an average of 7gb increase. Do the math, and using your own estimates of "10-12 games in an entire generation ppl buy" and that's an increase of....

Drum roll please....

5.292 gb increase per generation, grand total.

The argument fails.

@thedevilsjester
I'll give credit where it's due though. You made a plausible argument out of nothing for something almost impossible to defend. But after following the logic through to the end and doing the math with estimates, it's ok to admit when a hypothesis just doesn't pan out