Predict NTW's Sales in the First Month UPDATED Feb 27 2010

UPDATE Feb 27 2010

Alrighty kiddos, here's an update on NTW sales. No hard numbers yet, but some of you will be interested anyway.

According to Gamasutra, here's how NTW is fairing on Amazon.com compared to other games:

North America: 1. EverQuest II: Sentinel's Fate (SOE), 2. Mass Effect 2 (EA Games), 3. Star Trek Online (Atari), 4. BioShock 2 (2K Games), 5. Napoleon: Total War -- Limited Edition (Sega).

UK: 1. Napoleon: Total War (Sega), 2. Napoleon: Total War -- Imperial Edition (Sega), 3. Football Manager 2010 (Sega), 4. Aliens vs. Predator (Sega), 5. The Sims 3 (EA Games).

Also, I have to apologize for misinterpreting the Google Trends data the first time around. It turns out that there's been dramatically less search traffic for NTW when compared to ETW, until the last week. Here's the relative search traffic with ETW as the baseline (that is, the graphs represent the number of searches as compared to the average number of ETW searches for the given period; e.g., the index of 4.0 in the top graph means that there were 4x more searches on that day than the average number of searches for ETW over 12 months):

12 Months:



30 Days:

Here's web traffic for the largest TW fansite in the world. It looks like there's about 75% of the traffic that there was for NTW:

Daily Page Views for TWC

CONCLUSION:

Early indicators suggest that NTW is selling well compared to other PC titles, but not as well as ETW.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

How well do you think NTW will sell in the first month? Will NTW do better or worse? Post your prediction.

To give you a point of reference, ETW sold 810,000 copies in the first month.

• Data suggesting strong sales: Google Trends shows about the same search activity for NTW than for ETW during the month of January previous to release.
• Data suggesting weaker sales: NTW isn't in the Top 10 of web traffic/sales on Steam or Gamespot, while during the same period of time ETW was (iirc).
• Data suggesting I don't know what: ETW is currently outselling NTW presales on Amazon.com. I don't know what good presales look like--maybe one of you do.

(Yeah, it's not great data, but it's something anyway )

If you'd like to get more specific, go for it. I'll save my prediction until after a few people post theirs so as not to bias this otherwise scientific poll.


Note: We probably won't know the answer until April 2010. That's when SEGA Sammy publishes the results for FY2010.

Worse (570,001 - 770,000)

worse, just because people will be a bit hesitant after empire

No, people are only hesitant here, many other sites around the world I have been to all appreciate ETW, and are looking forward to NTW. TWC is full of negitive people, but thats how we are, nothings going to change that.

Originally Posted by Marshal Beale

No, people are only hesitant here, many other sites around the world I have been to all appreciate ETW, and are looking forward to NTW. TWC is full of negitive people, but thats how we are, nothings going to change that.

Not really, it's the ETW and NTW section of TWC that seems to draw the most complaints. Remember most of the complaints are from long term fans of this game who have more than ETW in their gaming library.

To address the question, I think the sales will be about the same.

Originally Posted by Marshal Beale

No, people are only hesitant here, many other sites around the world I have been to all appreciate ETW, and are looking forward to NTW. TWC is full of negitive people, but thats how we are, nothings going to change that.

The complaining might be more shrill here, but there's plenty of bellyaching about Empire on just about every forum you go to. That's partly because people who have bad experiences are mostly likely to post about it, but it's also partly because ETW was a let down on a whole variety of levels. But you're right that people are foolish to judge a product before it's been released. However, CA is ultimately to blame for leaving many of their customers feeling victimized. Heck, I feel victimized and I haven't had too many technical problems.

Originally Posted by Marshal Beale

No, people are only hesitant here, many other sites around the world I have been to all appreciate ETW, and are looking forward to NTW. TWC is full of Realistic people, Who Wont Take their Money Being Stolen but thats how we are, nothings going to change that.

Now its better!

Yer, its more ETW and NTW, but how dare people judge a game before they have played it. Thats the part I hate, they just assume that it will be ETW. When from everything released, its already better than ETW.
ANyway, I also picked "same'

Spot on!

I think many people will mistake NTW for an expansion, and afaik expansions usually don't do that well compared with the original. I won't vote, for fear of jinxing it, but I'm not very optimistic.

That said, if CA manage to do well on NTW, I'll do my best to pimp it

I think long-term, the sales will be much bettererer. Already we can see lots of factions have several different kinds of units instead of "hussars" and the omnipresent "Line infantry." Alot of my complaining about empire was the fact that even the most diverse armies of ETW were more alike than the most similar armies were in rome (except for the different variations of rome itself).

that's a tiny factor compared to the numerous bugs and missing(some promised) features. but from the stuff i've seen it looks like clone wars with shakos instead of tricorns.

bump

...In the paradox of CA’s Evolution/Revolution system, people will realise that Napoleon is not a Revolution...
...It is Empire Version 1.6 (1.7 if you count MP beta build)...post 1786 (whatever the start date is)...
...apart from single player battle drop in, ships regenerating in battle and a MP campaign from the off...what has Napoleon got that isn’t/shouldn’t/couldn’t be in Empire?...
...fluctuating weather and particle effects...these were in empire when things like SSAO tickboxes etc were/are fully functional...
...Limited Generals?...is that just not a unit cap...
...Magical inspirational Aura (AC6 HP 10 roll d100)...I thought Empire generals were supposed to give off morale boosting aura...
...blah blah etc etc...
...it will sell steadily, as bored Empire players eventually try it out, but first month...
...lowest

23 copies of NTW will be sold in East Cheam.

What a pointless thread.

What is this, Accountancy Total War?

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

23 copies of NTW will be sold in East Cheam.

What a pointless thread.

What is this, Accountancy Total War?

As opposed to all the other threads with points, I suppose. You do realize that the only reason CA exists is to sell games, right? And that the number of games they sell has everything to do with the type and number of products they supply down the road? Maybe that point isn't sharp enough for you. Perhaps you start a poll ranking the profundity of all the threads on the board. Or perhaps you can simple post your rankings, since you've appointed yourself arbiter.

Just a bit of speculation for those who are interested. It's a bit like guessing the score for the upcoming game. In addition, some people are interested in the business of gaming along with the games themselves. If you aren't, go back to painting your little blond soldiers or whatever artifexing gets you excited.

I think it'll be "betterer", seeing as it's a fresh breath from Empire and considering the fact that it covers a very interesting time period.

The news (real proves from in-game) say that it's better than ETW. Maybe the sells will be the same in the 1st week, and much better after

A lot of people said they wouldn't get another total war game after Empire.
I don't believe that for most of the cases, although there will definitely be some hesitating from fans.

It'll mostly depend on the the advertising campaigns I think.

Same (770,000 - 850,000)