Fallout 3 sales by the numbers

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
Orderite
No exact numbers will be known until Bethesda releases them, but NPD released their usual "a guess is better than nothing" statistics of US, retail-only sales. The month of October, Via Voodoo Extreme:<blockquote>PC Games: October 2008

1) Fallout 3 - Bethesda Softworks - $49 - 71,000 units
2) Spore - Electronic Arts - $49
3) Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy - Her Interactive - $18
4) Far Cry 2 - Ubisoft - $50
5) Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning - Electronic Arts - $49
6) World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Activision Blizzard - $38
7) The Sims 2: Apartment Life Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts - $26
8) Fallout 3 Collectors Edition - Bethesda Softworks - $79
9) The Sims 2: Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts - $25
10) Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Electronic Arts - $48
11) World Of Warcraft - Activision Blizzard - $20
12) Civilization IV: Colonization Expansion Pack - 2K Games - $29
13) World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack - Activision Blizzard - $29
14) Crysis Warhead - Electronic Arts - $30
15) Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway - Ubisoft - $49
16) Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Premier Edition - Electronic Arts - $65
17) Dead Space - Electronic Arts - $49
18) Spore Creature Creator - Electronic Arts - $10
19) Civilization IV - 2K Games - $24
20) The Sims 2: FreeTime Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts - $25 - 9,000 units

Console Games: October 2008

1) Fable II* - Xbox 360 - Microsoft - 790,000 units
2) Wii Fit - Nintendo Wii - Nintendo - 487,000 units
3) Fallout 3* - Xbox 360 - Bethesda Softworks - 375,000 units
4) Mario Kart - Nintendo Wii - Nintendo - 290,000 units
5) Wii Play With Remote - Nintendo Wii - Nintendo - 282,000 units
6) Saints Row 2* - Xbox 360 - THQ - 270,000 units
7) Socom: U.S. Navy Seals: Confrontation* - Playstation 3 - Sony - 231,000 units
8) LittleBigPlanet - Playstation 3 - Sony - 215,000 units
9) NBA 2K9 - Xbox 360 - 2K Games - 202,000 units
10) Dead Space - Xbox 360 - Electronic Arts - 193,000 units
11) Guitar Hero World Tour* - Xbox 360 - Activision Blizzard
12) Guitar Hero World Tour* - Nintendo Wii - Activision Blizzard
13) Kirby Super Star Ultra - Nintendo DS - Nintendo
14) Fallout 3* - Playstation 3 - Bethesda Softworks
15) Dead Space - Playstation 3 - Electronic Arts
16) Rock Band 2* - Playstation 3 - Electronic Arts
17) NBA 2K9 - Playstation 3 - 2K Games
18) Far Cry 2 - Xbox 360 - Ubisoft
19) Fifa Soccer 09 - Xbox 360 - Electronic Arts
20) Guitar Hero World Tour* - Playstation 3 - Activision Blizzard </blockquote>And that's just in the last few days of October (including retail preorders) as Fallout 3 was released near the end.

Meanwhile, the always-quick-updating UK charts show Fallout 3 grabbing #2 on Xbox 360 and #5 for PS3 in the first week of November (including last few days of October), dropping to 5 for Xbox 360 on the second week of November (sales dropping 42 percent since the week before) and dropping of the chart completely in the third week of November (actually it's #14 from what I got).
 
Brother None said:
And that's just in the last few days of October as Fallout 3 was released near the end.
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Doesn't it include preorders?
 
These are sales to retailers rather than sales to consumers, correct? If you really want a good indication of how well the game has sold to consumers than I'd suggest checking out Amazon's best sellers list, which it's ranked 61 on. That said, I don't really know what system they use for determining such.
 
UncannyGarlic said:
These are sales to retailers rather than sales to consumers, correct?
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No, NPD estimates the number of units sold through to consumers via traditional means.
 
Dionysus said:
UncannyGarlic said:
These are sales to retailers rather than sales to consumers, correct?
Click to expand...
No, NPD estimates the number of units sold through to consumers via traditional means.
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...How? I mean you either have the numbers or you don't, I'm not seeing how they're estimating this (they have the income from each version of the game for each system?) and the rankings are further damaged by some games having "units sold" with most not. All in all, it's not very convincing to me.
 
UncannyGarlic said:
...How? I mean you either have the numbers or you don't, I'm not seeing how they're estimating this (they have the income from each version of the game for each system?) and the rankings are further damaged by some games having "units sold" with most not. All in all, it's not very convincing to me.
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They get data from retailers. The 11-20 console sales don't have numbers because NPD doesn't allowed them to be released. I'm not sure why the top and bottom PC sales have numbers, they usually keep them to themselves. NPD doesn't get money from these numbers being released, they get money from publishers and other groups interested in the numbers paying for access to them.
 
Leon said:
3) Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy - Her Interactive - $18
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... Huh.
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In the entertainment biz it's called counter-programming. Lots of teenage and pre-teen girls have computers for homework, email, MySpace, IM, etc. How many PC games cater to their demographic? The Sims, Spore (maybe), Diner Dash, Barbie Horse Adventures, Dance Dance Revolution, and Nancy Drew. Not a lot of competition.

Back to Fallout 3. Check out Bethesda's revenue streams:
$50/unit x 71,000 units = $3,550,000 (PC vanilla)
$80/unit x 10,000 units (est.) = $800,000 (PC Collector's Ed.)
$60/unit x 375,000 units = $22,500,000 (XBox360)
$60/unit x 160,000 units (est.)= $9,600,000 (PS3)
=$36,450,000 (U.S.)

Not bad for a month's take that has been four years (of game design mediocrity) in the making. Keep in mind that this is just retail gross revenue. Of the sale price retailers might take $5/unit as their cut, plus Bethesda might pay $5-$10/unit for the manufacturing and shipping. It still is a huge amount of money, and then you take out their very large marketing costs and development costs to get Zenimax's taxable income.
 
Didn't they spend something like 40 million including PR and production? Which means they are still ~3.5 million behind? I could be off in the PR money spent though.
 
Sicblades said:
Didn't they spend something like 40 million including PR and production? Which means they are still ~3.5 million behind? I could be off in the PR money spent though.
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Those numbers don't include presales, and iridium_ionizer numbers are wrong. PC Collectors Addition is $70, the 360 Collectors is $80. Bethesda has probably made a good bit off it (or will).
 
Witchlock said:
Those numbers don't include presales.
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They don't? You sure?

Also, 40 million would be a fair but pretty high estimate. We don't really know their production cost, but it can be anywhere between 25-45 million USD including licensing and PR.

iridium_ionizers numbers are completely wrong for a variety of reasons. Rule of thumb is you need to sell 1 million copies full price to recuperate a production cost of 20-25 million USD. NPD numbers as a rule are about half of real sales (probably less than half now with non-US markets growing faster than the US and digital sales also being more of a factor), so they should've hit said 1 million at the very, very least.
 
Fallout 3 released on October 28th, so that's 4 days of sales.

It will be interesting to see the numbers for November.
 
Well don't be surprised if they don't grab the top spot for November. That's the consequence of releasing at the end-days of a month, you don't show up statistically. Won't mean much in real terms, tho'.
 
They won't get anywhere near top spot. It will just be interesting to see the numbers.

Gears of War 2 released in early November, it will crush Fallout.
 
everybody in Shakespearean chorus said:
iridium_ionizer numbers are wrong.
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Hey guys. I'm just using the numbers NMA posted. My math ain't wrong. Most of my assumptions and estimates were pretty obvious for what they were. This isn't a Zenimax Shareholder report. This is ballpark. So don't slam me, they ain't my numbers (for the most part), just my math. Last time I checked Excel still worked on multiplication and addition. I was just trying to sum up the numbers into a form that actually meant something.

Anyway, if anyone here has a better methodology and estimate of their Fallout 3 revenue (from the U.S. or elsewhere) I'd love to see it. No sarcasm intended. Show me. Teach me dear master.
 
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