NPD to begin tracking subscriptions and downloads

[Zeus]

XBL and other subscriptions first

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?optio ... 7&Itemid=2

It'll be interesting to see the userbase percentage that's been suckered into paying $50 a year ($70 up here) to play games they pay $50+ for. I say they'll report about 3 million active subscribers of the 11+ million userbase. Last article I read said they had only 8 million Live accounts, which means 3 million haven't even bothered to sign up. I'm willing to be over half those accounts are Silver.

We already know there are over 10 million subscribers on WoW per Blizzard. I don't in any way condone paying to play after you've purchased a game, but at least that game updates substantially throughout the year without including expansions. I'm curious what the NPD will report as I'm sure they'll look at active subscribers.

[Tessian]

I'm going to say this in the nicest way possible Zeus...

I hope you die choking on a dick.

Just stop it... it's gotten beyond funny and beyond annoying to just being a douchebag. We KNOW you don't want to pay for shit; you're a cheapass and a borderline thief so just shut the fuck up about it. Your opinion has been noted.

[Julius Seeker]

I hope there is tracking for VC titles, I am very interested in seeing how well Mario 3 and other games are doing.

[Zeus]

I'm going to say this in the nicest way possible Zeus...

I hope you die choking on a dick.

Just stop it... it's gotten beyond funny and beyond annoying to just being a douchebag. We KNOW you don't want to pay for shit; you're a cheapass and a borderline thief so just shut the fuck up about it. Your opinion has been noted.

Borderline thief? Wow, I've been upgraded

[Zeus]

I hope there is tracking for VC titles, I am very interested in seeing how well Mario 3 and other games are doing.

That's probably something they're still working on, getting Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft to play nice.

Well, Microsoft is allowing them access to XBL subscription figures, maybe it's just trying to get the other two on board?

[Julius Seeker]

Here are some VC stats, but they're overall totals rather than individual games:

<a href="http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35953/98">VC passes 10 million games sold</a>

So somewhere in the range of $80,000,000 USD total revenue

[Zeus]

Here are some VC stats, but they're overall totals rather than individual games:

<a href="http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35953/98">VC passes 10 million games sold</a>

So somewhere in the range of $80,000,000 USD total revenue

I'd love to see the breakdown for that and the XBLA. We all know of some of the big titles but beyond, say, the top 1%, how the hell are the others doing? Is Sin and Punishment, the best N64 game no one played, doing well? What about Super Mario 2 (Japanese version)? Or Rez HD?

And I hope they filter out the freebie downloads like Carcassone and Undertow for the XBLA. Especially since I'm in the middle of developing an XBLA game (I know none of you would ever pay for it on principle alone; I'll try and get you guys free copies somehow), I want to know what the market is actually like.

[Julius Seeker]

The market is good and it is growing. Though the biggest market for downloadable software is easily mobile. Something you should look into, there are good resources available for BREW and J2ME. Are you working on your own or as part of a team?

[Zeus]

The market is good and it is growing. Though the biggest market for downloadable software is easily mobile. Something you should look into, there are good resources available for BREW and J2ME. Are you working on your own or as part of a team?

My partner is one of the guys behind Warppipe. He's already done the cellphone stuff, he wants to go a little bigger. Actually, the game we have in mind can have a mini version on cellphones pretty easily. We've already got the concept and basic design down, he's working on the engine. He's been getting killed at work the last couple of months, so it's been a little slow. So I'm basically waiting for him to get time so we can have a playable build and start working on other stuff.

Both of us are console guys, we'd prefer to do console gaming. You can do so much more with XBLA, PS Store, or Wiiware than you can with the current cellphones. He's already got all those development tools, it's something we can branch to between projects or something. I'd rather get to doing full Wii or 360 games than do cellphone stuff personally. Actually would love to do DS stuff too.