GT6 Sales Discussion

[Zlork]

When I read NeoGAF for example, 95% didn't buy GT6 because of PS4.

But what's done is done. We'll see how it will evolve with GT7.

 

[cutmeamango]

As stated above why? All that matters is the 2.37 as of to date from the court proceedings show the game at 2.37 it's not some magical number plucked from the aether. They can deny that's fine but 2.37 is the number that will last be left with and then others will try to speculate and extrapolate when the game comes to a full end one what the final sales number was. If it's wrong to current date or when the court wanted the most recent number to that point, then they have bigger issues. The number most likely didn't fluctuate a ton if this is what the check point is after a yeah and a half. Nor should you expect some influx to sway it either way.

Why would it need to show when they petitioned obviously the matter formulated this year, and thus it had to be some time recently with in this year. And since this type of litigation is a money matter, it could easily be said that if the company suing wins they'll be asking for a monetary reconciliation from the time judgement settled. Thus this number should be as close to date as Sony/PD can get it. The problem here is you don't think I read it (when I did) and I'm just telling you that the reality is these numbers are probably close to what current tally shows because the documentation has to be in check.

Why verify? Because that's how news agencies operate?
Because the proper part of the document to be quoted would cite that these numbers were obtained by request of the court of X in the date of Y from party Z, if that?

And yes, when this is judged and if damages are to be recovered, it'll have to be calculated 'to date' indeed.
But this process is/was still valuating motions to grant or dismiss the claims. It's possible but unlikely that a court would ask a private company to disclose private information before that. That's is why, again, verifying the 'first amended complaint' in full or running this information with SCEA/Polyphony IF you desire to report it.

 

[sems4arsenal]

Granturismo bomba for the first time ever.

Could have seen it coming, a remastered version of GT6 should have been held a little and sold on the PS4 in my opinion, I think amar said that was the plan in the first place.

 

[gtracedriver1]

Damn! GT6 flopped real hard with those numbers, especially after massively disappointing fans from around the globe with GT5 and releasing GT6 on an last gen RIGHT AFTER the next gen consoles released. That's gotta be the worse selling GT title yet.

Makes you wonder what will be the point of PD developing GT7 then, because the current games in the racing genre has really set the bar REAL high now. PD can't afford to screw up this time, but something tells me they would after GT5/6.

Someone needs to compare GT6 numbers with other racing games during that time. Mind you games like DC and Forza have been benefited releasing on new console with bundle. Obviously not many people are rushing to buy GT6 PS3 bundle now and rather picking PS4 DC or Xbone Forza bundle. Pcars is a multiplat and its sales are dying faster than GT6 I think. In comparison to all other racing game on new console I think GT6 is ok whatever the real numbers are

 

[jimipitbull]

What's the frame of reference for "disastrous"? It's certainly notable that the sales are so much lower than GT5's, but how do we know that Sony didn't already expect them to be?

As it turns out, we don't know. Perhaps they look at GT as a series.

Do you think Sony's expectations are more or less relevant in the current climate?

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

Why verify? Because that's how news agencies operate?
Because the proper part of the document to be quoted would cite that these numbers were obtained by request of the court of X in the date of Y from party Z, if that?

They have a document of public record showing that Aug 21, 2015 the numbers are as such. If they requested it on may, june, july that is all speculation. This is a public document that gives a known data figure, and your basically saying that GTP are lying? Why cause PD possibly couldn't have done that bad with this game? If the court didn't specify a date how is that GTPs fault we have a time frame of when that number was made between July of last year to now. Why you think it wouldn't be something followed in a money matter case is beyond me.

And yes, when this is judged and if damages are to be recovered, it'll have to be calculated 'to date' indeed.
But this process is/was still valuating motions to grant or dismiss the claims. It's possible but unlikely that a court would ask a private company to disclose private information before that. That's is why, again, verifying the 'first amended complaint' in full or running this information with SCEA/Polyphony IF you desire to report it.

They desired to report what is known and what Sony released, if Sony felt it was a matter of public interest or had to be rectified, because you believe it may not be the current number...they would have one would think by now. Because the matter is damaging as you've said and thus the only way to rectify it is to assure fans that the number is indeed higher than this after almost 2 weeks. For now the fact that the number is even remotely at this point at all in say a year after release is still quite bad but probably not all too surprising.

 

[Famine]

Do we have proper details about the figure provided to the court ? Like region, duration etc ?

Worldwide, to date.

I don't think that the low numerical sales of GT6 in comparison to the GT series is what we should be taking from this. Allow me to expand.

Largely, games sell slightly more than half of their total within the first month on sale. It doesn't really matter what the game is, about half of all sales will occur in month 1 - with exceptions. For non-racing games let's look at Skyrim (7m in week 1, 23m in total) or the last last-gen-only Call of Duty (11m month one, 27m in total).

Let's look at GT5. 5.5 million sold in the first two weeks, 10.9 million sold in total.
How about GT4? 6.3 million sold in the first seven weeks, 11.7 million sold in total.

You can relatively often just double a game's first month sales and reach an approximate total sales figure - even when a game gets a second wind like GT5 with Spec 2. The odd exception to this is the X360 Forza Motorsport games, which kept selling at a relatively constant rate for much of their first year, hitting 3-5 times the month 1 sales. Since the games have all been out for different lengths of time, the month 1 sales gives us an approximate point of comparison.


Anyway, onto the point. Just about all of the currently-available console driving games, whether exclusive or cross platform, are selling intensely poorly in their first month and going on to hit very poor totals. Driveclub has sold 2m after a 550k opening month. FM5 is at 2m after a 700k opening month - half what FM4 managed. Project CARS is multiplatform and is only just creeping into the 1m mark.

GT6 managed 1.5m in its opening month and is on 2.4m total. These are the best figures for any racing simulation-type game on currently sold hardware other than GT5. GT5 on the other hand outsold GT6 and FM5 and Driveclub and Project CARS and Forza Horizon and Forza Horizon 2 all put together both in month 1 and in total - and these are all peers.


The question here shouldn't be "Why is GT6 selling so poorly compared to its predecessors?", but "Why are all racing 'sim' games selling so poorly compared to the past?". As we're largely all fans of this type of game, whatever our preferred flavour, this should be worrisome.

 

[mister dog]

When I read NeoGAF for example, 95% didn't buy GT6 because of PS4.

But what's done is done. We'll see how it will evolve with GT7.

Count me with the 5% then.

 

[jimipitbull]

Damn! GT6 flopped real hard with those numbers, especially after massively disappointing fans from around the globe with GT5 and releasing GT6 on an last gen RIGHT AFTER the next gen consoles released. That's gotta be the worse selling GT title yet.

Makes you wonder what will be the point of PD developing GT7 then, because the current games in the racing genre has really set the bar REAL high now. PD can't afford to screw up this time, but something tells me they would after GT5/6.

Imagine if PD had 8gb of GDDR5. Then compare that to SMS previous efforts with 512mb....

The raised bar(s) you speak of has more bugs than Elmer Fudd in wabbit season, or less content than the original Gran Turismo.

You can use sales figures to validate your choices, but if your current choices have lower sales figures then
ignowance is probably the best policy.

 

[poumpoum]

The question here shouldn't be "Why is GT6 selling so poorly compared to its predecessors?", but "Why are all racing 'sim' games selling so poorly compared to the past?". As we're largely all fans of this type of game, whatever our preferred flavour, this should be worrisome.

A lot of fans have begun to play first GTs with a gamepad. And as physics evolved in GTs game, a lot of us bought wheels to really appreciate the game. IMO, Gran Turismo is between the hardcore sim (as the ones we can find on PC) and a fun game (the one you can enjoy 2 minutes after you've launched the game). I think that a lot of us are disappointed because in trying to be those 2 games at the same time, Gran Turismo has got lost. GT isn't a great hardcore sim and GT isn't a fun game...

IMO, they have to choose, I don't think they are capable of doing the 2 at the same time. Players really don't know why they are buying a GT game anymore.

 

[Tired Tyres]

2.37 million? The only thing about that I find surprised it that it made it past 2 million to be honest after seeing this back in the day.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=873824&

That was 438,480 sales, not including Digital Downloads, for the first six months of 2014 in Europe. That's EUROPE. Which bought 1,000,000 pre orders for GT5P.

 

[Downhill Dino]

Worldwide, to date.

I don't think that the low numerical sales of GT6 in comparison to the GT series is what we should be taking from this. Allow me to expand.

Largely, games sell slightly more than half of their total within the first month on sale. It doesn't really matter what the game is, about half of all sales will occur in month 1 - with exceptions. For non-racing games let's look at Skyrim (7m in week 1, 23m in total) or the last last-gen-only Call of Duty (11m month one, 27m in total).

Let's look at GT5. 5.5 million sold in the first two weeks, 10.9 million sold in total.
How about GT4? 6.3 million sold in the first seven weeks, 11.7 million sold in total.

You can relatively often just double a game's first month sales and reach an approximate total sales figure - even when a game gets a second wind like GT5 with Spec 2. The odd exception to this is the X360 Forza Motorsport games, which kept selling at a relatively constant rate for much of their first year, hitting 3-5 times the month 1 sales. Since the games have all been out for different lengths of time, the month 1 sales gives us an approximate point of comparison.


Anyway, onto the point. Just about all of the currently-available console driving games, whether exclusive or cross platform, are selling intensely poorly in their first month and going on to hit very poor totals. Driveclub has sold 2m after a 550k opening month. FM5 is at 2m after a 700k opening month - half what FM4 managed. Project CARS is multiplatform and is only just creeping into the 1m mark.

GT6 managed 1.5m in its opening month and is on 2.4m total. These are the best figures for any racing simulation-type game on currently sold hardware other than GT5. GT5 on the other hand outsold GT6 and FM5 and Driveclub and Project CARS and Forza Horizon and Forza Horizon 2 all put together both in month 1 and in total - and these are all peers.


The question here shouldn't be "Why is GT6 selling so poorly compared to its predecessors?", but "Why are all racing 'sim' games selling so poorly compared to the past?". As we're largely all fans of this type of game, whatever our preferred flavour, this should be worrisome.

Thanks for the numbers, just as I was saying in my post. Racing games do appear to be taking a dive after all. Could it be the audience has largely grown up and moved on? How are other genres doing as well? Is the speculated video game market crash coming? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, and I don't know much of how things are actually going.

 

[mister dog]

Thanks for the numbers, just as I was saying in my post. Racing games do appear to be taking a dive after all. Could it be the audience has largely grown up and moved on? How are other genres doing as well? Is the speculated video game market crash coming? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, and I don't know much of how things are actually going.

Or GT might have been exceptionally popular and now has sunk to a normal sales figure for a typical racing game? I don't think racing games are less popular than before, but that there is more decent competition now which is a good thing.

 

[Downhill Dino]

That's true, again getting ahead of myself trying to look at a bigger picture which might not exist. But, would competition take away that much of sales? I mean really we could sit here all day and list contributing factors, but who knows?

 

[drivatar]

Do we know for sure if the numbers in the court document are from Sony?

FM5 is at 2m after a 700k opening month - half what FM4 managed.

What's the source of these numbers?

 

[jimipitbull]

Thanks for the numbers, just as I was saying in my post. Racing games do appear to be taking a dive after all. Could it be the audience has largely grown up and moved on? How are other genres doing as well? Is the speculated video game market crash coming? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, and I don't know much of how things are actually going.

When I was younger (Gen X) everyone was into cars, it was almost part of our culture in Australia (Holden vs Ford). Now, looking at Gen Y and Cupcake, they seem to be less into cars, and more into body image, sexuality and violence. They seem more inclined to be taking pictures of themselves on their smartphone or playing COD/GTA

 

[Famine]

Do we know for sure if the numbers in the court document are from Sony?

There are three possibilities: they are from VIRAG; they are from the judge; they are from SCEA.

What's the source of these numbers?

Ehhh, a mix. As far as I'm aware the only officially disclosed figures for FM5 are around 300k in week 1 through launch bundles, when it reached 1 million in February 2014 (about 4 months after release) and a comment from MS that "more than a third" of XBOne owners had bought the game, also in February 2014 - putting it at ~1.3m of the 4m consoles sold by then.

It is getting increasingly difficult to get actual numbers out of publishers. The fact that all games are seeing lower numbers seems to be part of it - even the last three CODs (Blops 2, Ghost, AW) sold fewer copies than their preceding game...

 

[mister dog]

That's true, again getting ahead of myself trying to look at a bigger picture which might not exist. But, would competition take away that much of sales? I mean really we could sit here all day and list contributing factors, but who knows?

To me it's a logical combination of better competition and the lackluster shape of GT in recent years. If I can serve as an example, I was a major GT fan until I got disappointed with 5, and since then I bought a lot of other racing franchises which didn't exist yet in the glory period of GT, and as such didn't bother with 6.

 

[Famine]

To me it's a logical combination of better competition and the lackluster shape of GT in recent years. If I can serve as an example, I was a major GT fan until I got disappointed with 5, and since then I bought a lot of other racing franchises which didn't exist yet in the glory period of GT, and as such didn't bother with 6.

But lots of other people didn't. Like... lots.

For the "better competition" argument to make sense, someone's got to be taking up the numbers that GT is losing.

FM4 and GT5 - broadly peers as they were on direct rival consoles and came out fairly close to each other (okay, 11 months) - sold pretty much 16m between them, with just under 8m of those being month 1 sales.

FM5 is 2.5m down on FM4. GT6 is 8m down on GT5. Where are the other games selling the 10.5m copies these two games have lost?

Driveclub accounts for 2m. PCARS for 1m. Where's the other 7m? Have they all gone to PC and bought iRacing and Assetto Corsa - only the online subscriber numbers don't reflect that (55k for iRacing!).

Perhaps they've ditched the sims and gone to arcade racers? They're not going to Need for Speed though - Rivals sold less than 5m since 2013, while back in 2005 NFS was selling that many copies on one console.


Sales aren't falling in Gran Turismo to be taken up by "better competition". Sales numbers are falling in racing games across the board and, it looks like, all games across the board.

 

[M Greenhouse]

Would these sales figures included sale of pre-owned games (2nd hand)? The copies of GT2 through to GT5 were all pre-owned copies for example that I bought due to my limited funds at the time. I got GT6 on release.

I'm sure this will have skewed the sales numbers to be lower than the actual number of people who played the game

 

[Famine]

Would these sales figures included sale of pre-owned games (2nd hand)?

Sony would not have access to those and, in any case, they wouldn't make the claimed "millions" if it was just one copy of the game being repeatedly traded between 2.37 million people.

This is new sales only.

 

[Aloha62_2]

In reference to driveclub it sold poorly thanks to a disastrous launch of being a very limited release, unplayable online and having PS plus sales suspended while the server issues took months to solve.

It had a lot of hype and interest was enough for a great release but that turned toxic due to those netcode and server issues.

Honestly I'm kind of glad gt6 had weak sales as it *may* prove to be a catalyst for an improved PS4 title.

 

[Venari]

Online gaming, and the 'quality' of gamers. FPS online gaming is objectively better than online racing both technically and qualitatively.

FPS is a successful online gaming model, because end users don't have to put any effort in, you can get into a lobby and if you're better than the other guys, you score high, and if you're worse, you get shot a lot. If you don't like it, you get out, get a new lobby and play again. And technically, it's that simple. And if you're good and the game is well managed, it's actually immensely rewarding and fun.

Online racing in GT6 (and I can't speak for FM) is bloody awful in comparison. Let's start with the technical:

You cast about in the open lobbies, and give up because you can't find people who are doing exactly what you want to do. So you go Quick Lobby, ignore all the Formula and Le Mans races there because no-one can drive, and you pick up a 350/400/450/500PP race. Then you wait for ten minutes to get a decent connection. Then you wait two minutes for the next race. Then eight players drop out. Then you're about to start and it resets and you have to wait three more minutes for a race. And then you actually might have some decent races, battling the GSX/Rs with something else for a challenge, or just running with the pack - and often still getting battered and cursing the AI penalty systems. (Also, levelling is crap. I don't know if the competition I race against is filtered or levelled in any way, but if it is, I'd love to know how, because it's horsepatootie.) And then you've done ten races at MidField and are bored. And it's like that for a month. Jeez.

As for the playing experience: well, it's largely poo. You cling on to a decent lobby for dear life. There's no real penalty for crap drivers. You want to race properly and there's some Plato just not using the brakes or sideswiping you down the straights. That's bumpercars, dimwits, feff off and play MarioKart.

My opinion: Sales are falling because now, racing games "aren't subjectively good or much fun" in comparison to other games which are more fun.

You want to reinvigorate racing? You should get stats like the FPS games. Also, 'practice'/'clubman'('core') and 'career'/'pro'/hardcore rules should be required. You want to play bumpercars? Core for you. You want to race properly? Hardcore, with cumulative damage, costing money for repairs (and sometimes with irreparable write-offs) and properly attributed blame. You ram someone? You get busted. All automatic within the game. People who consistently race cleanly get their next level race licence and graduate to somewhere where it's statistically less likely you'll get smashed about.

Is this what Project Cars is trying to do?

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

As mentioned previously, its not just GT6 with lower sales. Most games in general are not selling as well as they used to. The main reason IMO is because they are releasing so many unfinished games the current generation. They are rushed to be released on a certain date and nowhere near enough development time. Many games are loaded with bugs, glitches, they are incomplete, have much less content, and require months of patching before working the way they should have at launch. Then they are almost immediately followed with DLC. Its a terrible trend and clearly effecting developers and the quality of games. The developer mindset "Release now, patch later" is ruining the gaming industry.

 

[Venari]

.... agreed... and just in general, people are more willing to just kill things mindlessly and accept crapness than they are accept a poor-performing driving game?

Modern game development methodology sucks buttocks, and it's entirely* driven by money. Games are the new rock'n'roll, and devs know it.

* Daily Mail-esque hyperbole added for effect.

 

[mister dog]

But lots of other people didn't. Like... lots.

For the "better competition" argument to make sense, someone's got to be taking up the numbers that GT is losing.

FM4 and GT5 - broadly peers as they were on direct rival consoles and came out fairly close to each other (okay, 11 months) - sold pretty much 16m between them, with just under 8m of those being month 1 sales.

FM5 is 2.5m down on FM4. GT6 is 8m down on GT5. Where are the other games selling the 10.5m copies these two games have lost?

Driveclub accounts for 2m. PCARS for 1m. Where's the other 7m? Have they all gone to PC and bought iRacing and Assetto Corsa - only the online subscriber numbers don't reflect that (55k for iRacing!).

Perhaps they've ditched the sims and gone to arcade racers? They're not going to Need for Speed though - Rivals sold less than 5m since 2013, while back in 2005 NFS was selling that many copies on one console.


Sales aren't falling in Gran Turismo to be taken up by "better competition". Sales numbers are falling in racing games across the board and, it looks like, all games across the board.

There's also Grid, Shift and forza horizon so if you add those 3 you're getting a tad closer to the 7 million we were still missing in the equation. Don't know their total sales figures but at least it would partially explain the move away from GT, aside from the problems with GT itself.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Wow, those sales are much worse than I thought it were

 

[Famine]

There's also Grid, Shift and forza horizon so if you add those 3 you're getting a tad closer to the 7 million we were still missing in the equation.

Literally already did that on this page. And Shift is an NFS game... As in the bit you just quoted:

Perhaps they've ditched the sims and gone to arcade racers? They're not going to Need for Speed though - Rivals sold less than 5m since 2013, while back in 2005 NFS was selling that many copies on one console.

GT is haemorrhaging sales.
FM is haemorrhaging sales.
NFS is haemorrhaging sales.
FH, Driveclub and Project CARS aren't making any sales.

People are leaving racing games - and very few games of any kind are selling more copies of post-2011 sequels than they made in pre-2011 titles.

 

[jimipitbull]

Online gaming, and the 'quality' of gamers. FPS online gaming is objectively better than online racing both technically and qualitatively.

FPS is a successful online gaming model, because end users don't have to put any effort in, you can get into a lobby and if you're better than the other guys, you score high, and if you're worse, you get shot a lot. If you don't like it, you get out, get a new lobby and play again. And technically, it's that simple. And if you're good and the game is well managed, it's actually immensely rewarding and fun.

Online racing in GT6 (and I can't speak for FM) is bloody awful in comparison. Let's start with the technical:

You cast about in the open lobbies, and give up because you can't find people who are doing exactly what you want to do. So you go Quick Lobby, ignore all the Formula and Le Mans races there because no-one can drive, and you pick up a 350/400/450/500PP race. Then you wait for ten minutes to get a decent connection. Then you wait two minutes for the next race. Then eight players drop out. Then you're about to start and it resets and you have to wait three more minutes for a race. And then you actually might have some decent races, battling the GSX/Rs with something else for a challenge, or just running with the pack - and often still getting battered and cursing the AI penalty systems. (Also, levelling is crap. I don't know if the competition I race against is filtered or levelled in any way, but if it is, I'd love to know how, because it's horsepatootie.) And then you've done ten races at MidField and are bored. And it's like that for a month. Jeez.

As for the playing experience: well, it's largely poo. You cling on to a decent lobby for dear life. There's no real penalty for crap drivers. You want to race properly and there's some Plato just not using the brakes or sideswiping you down the straights. That's bumpercars, dimwits, feff off and play MarioKart.

My opinion: Sales are falling because now, racing games "aren't subjectively good or much fun" in comparison to other games which are more fun.

You want to reinvigorate racing? You should get stats like the FPS games. Also, 'practice'/'clubman'('core') and 'career'/'pro'/hardcore rules should be required. You want to play bumpercars? Core for you. You want to race properly? Hardcore, with cumulative damage, costing money for repairs (and sometimes with irreparable write-offs) and properly attributed blame. You ram someone? You get busted. All automatic within the game. People who consistently race cleanly get their next level race licence and graduate to somewhere where it's statistically less likely you'll get smashed about.

Is this what Project Cars is trying to do?

Sales were better before online was even a thing. I think it's more a generational thing, as opposed to fps/online/offline etc. Console game sales are going down, while phone apps/games and youtube views/comments are going up. More people now work on computers all day, perhaps they are less inclined to play computer games after work. Shorter attention spans due to the distractions of modern life. Gamers have become critics, looking for flaws as opposed to looking for fun. There's more people wearing lycra and riding bikes.

Perhaps I am wrong and World of Speed will kickstart a revolution. Myself, I'd rather see HD remakes of the old favorites - TOCA, GT3, Enthusia, Tourist Trophy.

 

[Zelalem]

Wow, those sales are much worse than I thought it were

Despite GT5 flaws and the initial reaction compared to GT1-4, i never thought the sales would decline so much.

You want to reinvigorate racing? You should get stats like the FPS games. Also, 'practice'/'clubman'('core') and 'career'/'pro'/hardcore rules should be required. You want to play bumpercars? Core for you. You want to race properly? Hardcore, with cumulative damage, costing money for repairs (and sometimes with irreparable write-offs) and properly attributed blame. You ram someone? You get busted. All automatic within the game. People who consistently race cleanly get their next level race licence and graduate to somewhere where it's statistically less likely you'll get smashed about.

Is this what Project Cars is trying to do?

The league system in Forza Motorsport 6 will put you automatic in races with drivers that have similar skill and behaviour than you.