Gamestop price drop ALREADY..is Madden hurting for sales this year?

[Only1LT]

Quote: Originally Posted by mrprice33

Lol did you just ignore my post or what? The same % of people are buying the game now as did in the ps2 days. The userbase is just much lower.

How is the install base less when the PS2 STILL has Madden lol? There are more consoles to buy the game on than ever before so that point is moot. You don't HAVE to buy the game on a current gen system.

Even if all that were not true, it still would not change the fact that sales have gone down EVERY year. That's all I said. Even if the install base of consoles was less, which it isn't, it still would not change that singular fact.

Sorry.

[mrprice33]

Lol what? The lead skus of the game are xbox 360 and ps3. There are less of those combined than there are ps2s. A lot of those people who bought ps2s haven't upgraded. It's amazing, I know, but the numbers are plain as day. There are simply less potential buyers for ps3 and 360 madden than there were for ps2 and xbox, but they are capturing just as much of a % of those people as they ever have.

And the sales of ps3/360 have actually gone UP year over year.

And I know you have this little narrative that you have to hold to, but sales of the 2005 game (the year before the exclusive) are the lowest of the last 5 years. 2010 outsold 2005 if you look at total units across all platforms. So no, sales have not gone down every year since the exclusive, unless you only count the lead sku. But it you count the lead skus, then of course you run into the argument that % wise they are right on target. The same % of people bought 2010 on the lead skus as did 2005 (which had the highest lead sku sales of any of the games in the past 5 years).

I'd call that checkmate.

[Only1LT]

Quote: Originally Posted by mrprice33

Lol what? The lead skus of the game are xbox 360 and ps3. There are less of those combined than there are ps2s. A lot of those people who bought ps2s haven't upgraded. It's amazing, I know, but the numbers are plain as day. There are simply less potential buyers for ps3 and 360 madden than there were for ps2 and xbox, but they are capturing just as much of a % of those people as they ever have. And the sales of ps3/360 have actually gone UP year over year. And I know you have this little narrative that you have to hold to, but sales of the 2005 game (the year before the exclusive) are the lowest of the last 5 years. 2010 outsold 2005 if you look at total units across all platforms. So no, sales have not gone down every year since the exclusive, unless you only count the lead sku. But it you count the lead skus, then of course you run into the argument that % wise they are right on target. The same % of people bought 2010 on the lead skus as did 2005 (which had the highest lead sku sales of any of the games in the past 5 years). I'd call that checkmate.

Lol. You try hard, I'll give you that.

I'll answer this and then I'll leave it alone.

There was a graph posted that shows that sales have gone down every year. I could put the exact numbers in to show this and break it down by year and console, which I have done before, but I don't have time now.

The bottom line. This install excuse is just that. There are more PS2's now then there were in 2004. A LOT MORE. There are about 145 million PS2s out there. There are about 40 million PS3s. There are about 44 million 360s. There are like 70 million Wiis. All of these consoles have Madden. More total consoles than there were in 2004 with the PS2, XBOX, and Gamecube. That isn't even taking into account the number of PSPs, which has also increased since 2004.

Obviously, some of the people that would buy it on PS2, have upgraded, and they should not be counted, but there is no doubt, that not everyone that bought a copy on PS2 and XBOX in 2004, buys one on the current gen systems. If you look at the numbers, you will see this. And obviously not everyone has upgraded to the current gen systems from the older ones, so there are most likely still people that could buy Madden on the last gen, if they wanted to. Lead console, has no bearing.

So yes, the current gen numbers go up, and the overall numbers go down. This isn't Rocket Science to put 2 and 2 together. The number of copies sold in 2004 is less than now. PERIOD. You want to take solace in the fact that the HD systems are selling more copies, that's fine. Check mate, I guess lol.

Total unit sales go down every year. There is nothing false about that statement.

[btemp]

Exactly, its not that complicated.

Total # of Consoles in 2010 > Total # of Consoles in 2005

[mrprice33]

LOL So the PS2 and PSP are now viable platforms for releasing new games? Are you kidding? I guess sony should just release Gran Turismo 5 on ps2 then, since the install base is larger than ps3's, right? And PSP, where they have something like a 75% piracy rate. Good idea, let's count those two platforms and ignore all of the other factors that no longer make them viable. And double lol @ the wii, where great 3rd party games go to die. If it doesn't have nintendo on it, it doesn't sell. Period.

Okay, so let's look at the real facts. There are 24.31 million 360s and 14.68 million ps3s in the united states. http://www.vgchartz.com/hardware_totals.php There are 52.22 million ps2s right now. The 360 and ps3 COMBINED do not have as many units out there as ps2s. So no, there are not as many lead sku buyers as there used to be. To further demonstrate the lack of selling power of the ps2, look at the top selling games for the year...http://www.vgchartz.com/yearly.php?reg=America how many ps2 games do you count on that list? 0. Why? Because it's a dead platform. So again, the only legitimate way to look at this is lead vs lead. That's ps2/xbox vs ps3/360. I already broke down how many ps2s were out at the end the year that madden 2004 released, and clearly demonstrated that the same percentage of people bought that game that year on those consoles as they did on the ps3/360. The ratio is the same. So yes, the raw numbers are down, but the raw numbers of the available buyers is also down.

To put it this way. Let's say you live in an isolated small town of about 100. You release a book only in the town and it sells 50 copies. Shortly after your book runs out of print, 90 people move out of the town, leaving only 10. You release your next book and only 5 copies sell. Yes, you sold only 5 copies, but there were less buyers, and you still captured the same % of buyers, so the second book must be deemed just as successful as the first. There's no way around it.

If you can provide any evidence to prove that the wii, ps2, psp, etc would support a madden game in 2010, I'd love to hear it.

Oh, and btw, again, you're wrong. That chart shows yearly totals of 6.17 in 2005, 7.48 in 2006, 9.08 in 2007, 7.7 in 2008, 7.52 in 2009, and 6.18 in 2010. So what it shows (if we use the total sales, which I don't advocate doing) is that the game got progressively more popular AFTER the exclusive deal. The trends also show the ps3 gaining 1.3 million more sales in 2010 than 2007, btw.

[Only1LT]

Quote: Originally Posted by mrprice33

LOL So the PS2 and PSP are now viable platforms for releasing new games? Are you kidding? I guess sony should just release Gran Turismo 5 on ps2 then, since the install base is larger than ps3's, right? And PSP, where they have something like a 75% piracy rate. Good idea, let's count those two platforms and ignore all of the other factors that no longer make them viable. And double lol @ the wii, where great 3rd party games go to die. If it doesn't have nintendo on it, it doesn't sell. Period. Okay, so let's look at the real facts. There are 24.31 million 360s and 14.68 million ps3s in the united states. http://www.vgchartz.com/hardware_totals.php There are 52.22 million ps2s right now. The 360 and ps3 COMBINED do not have as many units out there as ps2s. So no, there are not as many lead sku buyers as there used to be. To further demonstrate the lack of selling power of the ps2, look at the top selling games for the year...http://www.vgchartz.com/yearly.php?reg=America how many ps2 games do you count on that list? 0. Why? Because it's a dead platform. So again, the only legitimate way to look at this is lead vs lead. That's ps2/xbox vs ps3/360. I already broke down how many ps2s were out at the end the year that madden 2004 released, and clearly demonstrated that the same percentage of people bought that game that year on those consoles as they did on the ps3/360. The ratio is the same. So yes, the raw numbers are down, but the raw numbers of the available buyers is also down. To put it this way. Let's say you live in an isolated small town of about 100. You release a book only in the town and it sells 50 copies. Shortly after your book runs out of print, 90 people move out of the town, leaving only 10. You release your next book and only 5 copies sell. Yes, you sold only 5 copies, but there were less buyers, and you still captured the same % of buyers, so the second book must be deemed just as successful as the first. There's no way around it. If you can provide any evidence to prove that the wii, ps2, psp, etc would support a madden game in 2010, I'd love to hear it. Oh, and btw, again, you're wrong. That chart shows yearly totals of 6.17 in 2005, 7.48 in 2006, 9.08 in 2007, 7.7 in 2008, 7.52 in 2009, and 6.18 in 2010. So what it shows (if we use the total sales, which I don't advocate doing) is that the game got progressively more popular AFTER the exclusive deal. The trends also show the ps3 gaining 1.3 million more sales in 2010 than 2007, btw.

You're on this lead sku thing for some reason or another like people could not buy it on the PS2 today if they wanted to. Where does it say you HAVE to buy it on current gen? And the PS2 still sells quite well so it isn't like no one still doesn't buy PS2 games.

What ever. Like I said, I'm done.

And as for your point about the graph sales, I had seen sales on VG Chartz that were different when I added them up myself and posted them a while back. If they were wrong, or if the numbers have changed since, so be it.

The bottom line is, EA thought they would really make a killing by being the only game in town. The only thing they have done is maintain the status quo at best, and go backwards at worse. All for the low, low price of about 600 or 700 million dollars.

Nice move. Check and mate, I guess again, right?

PS. That comment about the book sales is ludicrous. Who cares about percentages. If a publisher sells 50 copies to 100 potential buyers one year, but only 5 copies to 10 potential buyers the next, it still equals less revenue. You don't make money from moral victories.

Wow.

[mrprice33]

Whether or not you have to is beside the point. The market has decided that the ps2 is a dead platform. You know how many ps2 games sold last week? 92 thousand. That's only 3% of the total software sales last week (3.4 million). It's DEAD.

Just as another exercise, let's take the combined ps2 and xbox install base at the end of 2005. It was about 55 million. Madden that year sold 6.17 million copies, or 11.6% of the total userbase at the time.

Last year there were about 33 million 360s and ps3s on the market at the end of the year. Madden sold 4.5 million units between these 2 systems, or 12.6% of the install base. If the numbers hold, and the 360 and ps3 catch up to the ps2 and xbox, they'll sell roughly 6 to 700 thousand copies more per year than they did during the ps2/xbox days. That's an extra 3.6 million in revenue per year, and that's assuming the numbers don't rise at all.

According to an article I just read on cnn money http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/14/comm...column_gaming/ said that the deal cost "over 300 million, but nowhere near the 500 million some are reporting." So yeah, they overpaid for the license, but that's not really the argument that was presented in the post. Besides, we don't know how much they would have lost had 2k still been competing with them, and if the numbers of this gen would be lower for ea if 2k had continued making football games. I would say the evidence is incomplete on how much they made off the deal, considering we don't have an alternate universe to compare the sales results to, nor do we have the complete sales numbers through the duration of the deal (as there are still at least 2 games that still need to come out).

[ryan36]

Sorry guys, we're just gonna be going in circles now..closed