New Game Plus (October 14-20)
NPD September
It’s the middle of the month again and not only does that mean the month is halfway done as you can imagine but it also means that we got the US video game charts for the month of September. This information comes to us courtesy of Mat Piscatella of the NPD group and you can find him on YouTube. If you want to see his whole report then I will leave a link in the description if you want to know more than what I found interesting. This data is based off of a five week period that went from the first of September to the 5th of October, which is good because it was able to get some big releases in that period including Gears 5, Borderlands 3, Links Awakening, Code Vein, FIFA 20, NBA 2K20 and even into October you have Ghost Recon Breakpoint which came out on October 4th. Although, Breakpoint had one of those awkward staggered release schedules depending on what platform and which edition you were playing it on. A few other things I was interested to see was how Gears 5 fared sales wise considering it was one of the first major first party AAA titles that was released day and date on Xbox GamePass. The other thing I am looking to see is how a few games from the near end of August did considering they didn’t do so well in the August charts and I thought more time would equate possibly to more sales including Control and Man of Medan.
Before diving right into the individual titles and instead taking a lot at the video game market in September as a whole, things were as expected coming into a new generation. Especially considering that this year was a little lacklustre in terms of new game releases. Hardware, software and accessories were all down vs the same time the year prior. Hardware sales were down over 20 percent in the whole sector but apparently they could have been much worse if not for Nintendo Switch selling well as expected. The other factor to thank for the Nintendo Switch selling well was the release of the Nintendo Switch Lite, which has reviewed well and is a great entry point to get more people into the Nintendo ecosystem.
The good news is that although sales were bad for the month across the board, software sales are the highest they have been in 5 years in terms of year to date. This makes perfect sense as every day we get farther from the release of the PS4, Xbox One and Switch, the greater the install base for each of those systems become. More people that own the systems leads to more games being sold.
This could be due to the fact that I am not a very big sports gaming fan but this next stat caught me a little off guard. NBA2K20 was the best selling game of the month, hang on there’s more, it instantly becomes the best selling game of the year, wait there's still more, and it becomes the highest launch month for any sports gaming title in history. I mean I knew NBA2K20 was popular but I didn’t think it was that at those levels, especially considering that you had some tough competition during the month with games like Borderlands 3, Gears 5 and Links Awakening being released. Although NBA2K20 is multi platform which instantly makes the only competition Borderlands 3. Looking at it that way, it was quite a month for TTWO with those two massive titles and with Borderlands 3 coming in at second overall on the month.
Rounding out the charts, FIFA came in at third, Links Awakening at fourth, Breakpoint at sixth, Gears 5 at seventh, Code Vein eighth and NHL20 at ninth. Breaking down that data, what stuck out to me was that Control and Man of Medan were nowhere to be seen on the top 20 which is a little disappointing as Control has reviewed very well and Man of Medan was more of what people wanted but maybe they both missed the mark just a little. You can see our reviews for the two game as Ill post a link in the description, spoiler alert: I wasn’t as high on Control as most people were. The next thing that caught my eye was Gears 5 coming in at 7th which is impressive considering that the game was basically free if you already subscribed to GamePass or two dollars if you wanted to do a trial month. Even with those factors as well as September being a busy month and Gears being a console exclusive this has to be a win in Microsofts eye. This is also a great indication of just how much the metrics and culture are changing because for your AAA exclusive to place seventh and to consider that a win is a breath of fresh air and shows that there are now many different avenues to success. The next thing was that it was a good month for EA with FIFA, Madden and NHL all placing in the top ten, especially considering that hockey still is not the most popular sport. Finally, Links Awakening placing at fourth is impressive for a remake of a 1993 Gameboy Game that was sold at full price and was also console exclusive. Mario Kart 8 also placed tenth on the month which is most likely due to many parents and younger kids purchasing the Nintendo Switch Lite and buying those two games to go with it.
Analogue Pocket
If you have been waiting for Nintendo to release the GameBoy Classic, like the NES Classic and the SNES classic over the past few years then I have good news for you. It might not be the exact answer you are looking for but it is good news if you are a fan of the classic handhelds of years past including gameboy, game gear, neo geo and more.
This week analogue, the makers of the critically acclaimed retro consoles Analogue NT and Analogue SG, announced that they would be released the Analogue Pocket. The factor that has made Analogue popular over the years has been their engineering. These systems aren’t using an emulator, instead they use the actual carts that these games were put on in the first place. This means they aren’t using any ROM’s and you are going to be able to experience the game exactly how it was meant to be when it was released.
There is no specific date yet but the system will be coming in 2020 according to their website. Out of the box the system will be capable of playing almost 3000 games from game boy, gameboy color and gameboy advance. To play handheld games from other systems including Sega and Atari you will need to purchase a cartridge adapter that will be sold separately. Sold separately will be a stylish dock that hooks up to your tv via hdmi similar to the Nintendo Switch allowing you to play on the big screen and also hook up a wireless Bluetooth controller to game as well.
The base system will launch next year for 199 US with the pricing and date of the cartridge adapters and dock TBD.
There has been an assumption that the next mini system that Nintendo will put out, if they do, would be either the N64 or Gameboy. I guess both of those go with common sense considering they would be the next chronological system released after the NES and SNES. The reason I mention those is because I am curious how, if at all, the analogue pocket would affect a Gameboy classic release. At the end of the day I think these are two very separate markets. The analogue pocket is designed for the collector and the hardcore gamer and the Gameboy Classic is target towards the casual gamer, the nostalgic and the parent who is looking to buy a gaming gift. At the end of the day if you want to see those green shaded games in all of their glory then this would be the best and most modern way to do it outside of having a mint condition Gameboy.
Overwatch Launch
As a small follow up to last weeks story on Blizzard, I was curious just how far into the mainstream it would penetrate and what, if any repercussions their actions would have.
Overwatch on Switch was met with positive reception when it was first announced back at a Nintendo Direct a few months ago. their relationship with Nintendo has seemed solid with blizzard showing the company support with ports of Diablo 3 and now Overwatch.
As a great way to thank fans in New York and generate hype for the release, Nintendo announced, on social media, that they would be hosting a fan event with some of the voice actors from Overwatch. The event was to take place in conjunction with the launch of the game on Switch. The game was released on Tuesday and the Nintendo meet and greet event was supposed to take place on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Nintendo released a small statement:
“Please be aware that the previously announced Overwatch launch event scheduled for Wednesday, 10/16 at NintendoNYC has been cancelled by Blizzard. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause”
Blizzard stayed quiet regarding the cancellation of the event and Nintendo didn’t elaborate but it’s safe to assume that in light of recent events discussions were held between the two companies. My assumption is that hopefully they both decided that the event would do more negative than it would do positive and it would put a lot of innocent people in a awkward situation they don’t want to be in or worse, in harms way. Think of the voice actors signing autographs and then someone comes and throws paint on them or the workers trying to explain to the little kids who have no idea about any of this what the profane signs mean.
Overall, it’s a sad decision that fans had to miss out on this very fun event but ultimately I think the right choice was made. It’s also very funny to note exactly how the statement was written and that it basically put all of the blame on Blizzard. This is not something that you see everyday. Companies generally stick together and usually release some PR jargon that covers up the truth. Conversations were obviously had between the two companies regarding how the wording should be for the statement. It was good to see Nintendo demand that even though it doesn’t throw Blizzard under the bus completely, it does let people know that it wasn’t up to Nintendo, even though Nintendo may have been the ones to decide to cancel the event in the first place.
Blizzards actions from a few weeks ago are starting to affect other companies but I don’t think it’s affecting their bottom line because I saw plenty of people posting their Overwatch Switch case and their captions had nothing to do with the recent troubles surrounding Blizzard. Only a few more weeks until Blizzcon so it will be interesting to see, what, if any repercussions it might have on the event. It might actually have the opposite effect on the event with Blizzard feeling that they need to generate enough positive publicity to make most people forget about the recent events. Diablo 4 will be the very minimum but I would also expect other game announcements that might not have been made if not for recent events.
Nintendo Switch Sales
This week Nintendo sent out a press release updating the sales status of the Nintendo Switch in North America and the short story is that it’s doing very well. In 2019 the Switch console has jumped 20 percent, thanks in large part to an evergreen and ever growing library of great games. To date the Nintendo Switch has sold almost 37 million units, with 15 million of those coming directly from North America. These figures also include sales of the newly released Nintendo Switch Lite.
Doug Bowser, president of Nintendo of America, went on to say that expects the holiday season to be a strong with recent and upcoming releases including links awakening, ring fit adventure, Pokémon sword and shield and Luigi’s Mansion 3. Combine these new games with a more economical Switch Lite and all of the evergreen titles Nintendo has to offer and it sure should be a strong holiday season. On October 31st, Nintendo will be releasing their Q2 earnings ending September so it will be nice to see how well the Lite sold in addition to some new tidbits about future projects on the Switch.
Modern Warfare Battle Pass
With this years entry in the Call of Duty series only days away, it’s only right that we starting into, marketing and preview blasted. One of the more notable info blasts that we got this week was regarding loot boxes, which were oddly somewhat featured in the beta with a placeholder. On the Activision Blog it was announced that Modern Warfare would have zero loot boxes and would instead be moving towards, you guesssed it, A Battle Pass among other gamer first changes.
This year Modern Warfare is working on everything that people deemed a negative for the series. Not the first game to introduce cross play but the first COD to have cross play should be a big road inwards for other games since Call of Duty is a massive mainstream franchise that can change the gaming landscape, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. There will be no special post launch maps and modes exclusive to any platform which is a nice change although there was a bit of an uproar a few weeks ago when it was announced that a special ops horde mode would be PS4 exclusive for a year. The wording makes it seem like this will be the only mode that is exclusive and anything after the launch of the game will be available to all consoles at the same time
My personal favorite change that the series made this year was the removal of the season passes and the map pack DLC. My assumption is that most of the audience doesn’t purchase the map packs and season passes which leaves the market divided. Once the first wave of paid content is released in previous titles is when Activision must have seen a massive drop in player count. They clearly had bean counters that figured it was better for them to keep the whales who buy everything than to try to get the smaller fish with little purchases. Clearly the gaming landscape has changed with games like Fortnite and Apex offering content to keep the player base together but yet still offering plenty of room for purchasing.
As for the battle pass, it sounds like all the other battle passes you may know with a free tier and a premium paid tier. It was strongly noted that none of the content featured in the battle pass will affect gameplay, instead it will be all cosmetics only. Activision said that it won’t be released for the launch of the game. Their reasoning is twofold, first, day one launch being flawless is very important to positive word of mouth and reviews which will lead to better sales. Secondly, they want to make sure everyone has a chance to figure out the new systems that have been implemented in this years entry, most notably the gunsmith. From my experience in the betas, there is a lot of new information to adjust to in the new gunsmith area that hasn’t been in the series previous entries. Although the real answer, the cynical answer could be that Activision is unsure how the pricing of the battle pass might be received. There is a possibility that the pricing structure will create negative PR which could lead to less sales and when it comes to new releases the first couple of weeks of sales are vital to success.