FIFA/EASFC and PES/eFootball: Contrast & Compare

[Chuny]

Does it? Because FIFA's got the Champions League now, and look at those sales...

I think it shows how sick and tired we are of so little genuine improvement each year.

12.500.000 vs 660.000?
I think it still shows that general public just want to have their team kits, logos, names...

And not because FIFA's gameplay is bad. But because if you took away all the licenses from it, and gave them to PES, number would revert. Same gameplay, same modes. Just the licenses (including Stadia, of course).

 

[Gunslinger]

Are all these totals for the same time period, September - December?

If they are then they seem very dubious. If this years numbers are to date and the previous years are for the whole year, then they might be about right.

Either way, very skeptical of these things.

 

[mfmaxpower]

I don't think those are point in time comparisons. I'm not a numbers guy but pretty sure you'd have to wait for FIFA 19 (and PES) to be out a year to compare them to previous titles. Of course the current edition that's only been out a couple months would have far fewer trophies completed than the versions that have been out for over a year, no?

Obviously the comparison between FIFA v PES is interesting, but nothing new really.

 

[Chris Davies]

For those asking about the numbers, as stated, they're up to the middle of November. So PES had a little longer in terms of release date (it came out earlier) - and yes, it means no lifetime sales (like Christmas gifts, on-offer sales next year when the new game is being touted, etc.)...

But the majority who buy, buy within a month of release.

Sony previously had a slip like this with God of War, revealing how many had unlocked the platinum trophy, allowing people to figure out how many had played it (providing a very rough sales estimate), and a lot of people (as in, publishers and higher-ups) were really angry about it - so A) it must be pretty accurate, and B) I imagine there will be more anger over this...

But again, this is players, not sales. I gameshare, for example, so my one sale will appear as two players. Therefore, if anything, these numbers will be inflated compared to sales...

But again, it's PS4 only, and it's ball-park figures (as an example, using two different high-number PES 2019 trophies to make the calculation results in a difference of 20,000 - which sounds like a lot, but realistically, it still amounts to about 650,000 players - I reckon that means a minimum of 500,000 sales, on PS4 only remember).

 

[mfmaxpower]

For those asking about the numbers, as stated, they're up to the middle of November. So PES had a little longer in terms of release date (it came out earlier) - and yes, it means no lifetime sales (like Christmas gifts, on-offer sales next year when the new game is being touted, etc.)...

But the majority who buy, buy within a month of release.

Sony previously had a slip like this with God of War, revealing how many had unlocked the platinum trophy, allowing people to figure out how many had played it (providing a very rough sales estimate), and a lot of people (as in, publishers and higher-ups) were really angry about it - so A) it must be pretty accurate, and B) I imagine there will be more anger over this...

But again, this is players, not sales. I gameshare, for example, so my one sale will appear as two players. Therefore, if anything, these numbers will be inflated compared to sales...

But again, it's PS4 only, and it's ball-park figures (as an example, using two different high-number PES 2019 trophies to make the calculation results in a difference of 20,000 - which sounds like a lot, but realistically, it still amounts to about 650,000 players - I reckon that means a minimum of 500,000 sales, on PS4 only remember).

I'm not sure if this is meant as a response to me asking about point in time comparisons, but that's such a massive drop off from FIFA 18 to 19 that it's real tough to take seriously without knowing/hearing more. I could understand a drop off - even a substantial one - but more than a 50% drop-off after year upon year increases?

That just doesn't make sense and I'm hesitant to jump on the bandwagon of "this is proof that EA fucking sucks!" Don't get me wrong - I'd love it if it was true that FIFA sales were suffering as it would mean EA-FIFA might actually get their fucking act together, but that drop-off looks way too massive to represent an accurate year-vs-year comparison.

 

[Chris Davies]

I'm not sure if this is meant as a response to me asking about point in time comparisons, but that's such a massive drop off from FIFA 18 to 19 that it's real tough to take seriously without knowing/hearing more. I could understand a drop off - even a substantial one - but more than a 50% drop-off after year upon year increases?

That just doesn't make sense and I'm hesitant to jump on the bandwagon of "this is proof that EA fucking sucks!" Don't get me wrong - I'd love it if it was true that FIFA sales were suffering as it would mean EA-FIFA might actually get their fucking act together, but that drop-off looks way too massive to represent an accurate year-vs-year comparison.

Eurogamer and others mentioned that retail sales were down massively for FIFA and PES this year, but had no way to see if this shortfall had (against all opinion polls regarding digital purchases vs physical purchases) been replaced by online digital storefront sales.

I would say that this is evidence they haven't been, and that the initial observations were correct... Especially given that this is the first year of such a drop-off.

Eurogamer: FIFA 19 Physical Sales Down 25% (and this looks to have continued beyond launch)

Eurogamer: PES 2019 Physical Sales Down 42% (same thing)

 

[slamsoze]

Well, this goes to show just how important licenses are to the large majority.

Or it shows how much FIFA progressed since 2011 IRL or since PES2014 in the ps4 platform and how much pes regressed or stayed in decline since pes6.While all years after pes2008, PES is behind FIFA,even if we assume that this year’s PES is the best ever (which is not) , or next year’s game,it will simply be the next chapter of pes6 which is a 10+ years of declining.
What I want to conclude is for EA it was easier to manage their dark ages as they were head-to-head with the KONAMi masterpieces,even if the FIFAS pre 2010 were inferior of the respectives PES.A FIFA 2011 and another one (choose whatever you want) was enough to establish a dynasty in the modern era.
For the good ol’ KONAMI as we know them,one step forward- two steps backwards ,without servers,with poor online service and offline content and only interested to sell myClub coins,or will be needed a consecutive streak of 15/17/19 in a progressing flow to establish a possibility of challenging EA again.

 

[Chris Davies]

These numbers seem to be too low to be true. See this:

As I said, they're numbers as of mid-November. So for a game like Battlefield V (released November 9th), obviously that's barely any time.

But FIFA was released on September 28th. That's almost two months of data. PES was released August 28th - that's almost three months of data. (I once read an article that states most gamers, particularly sports gamers, buy the game within the first month, with the next biggest chunks being Christmas sales and almost-time-for-the-new-version sales).

It's enough to be fairly representative, IMO.

 

[mfmaxpower]

Eurogamer and others mentioned that retail sales were down massively for FIFA and PES this year, but had no way to see if this shortfall had (against all opinion polls regarding digital purchases vs physical purchases) been replaced by online digital storefront sales.

I would say that this is evidence they haven't been, and that the initial observations were correct... Especially given that this is the first year of such a drop-off.

Eurogamer: FIFA 19 Physical Sales Down 25% (and this looks to have continued beyond launch)

Eurogamer: PES 2019 Physical Sales Down 42% (same thing)

I don't know. Lots of assumptions and extrapolations happening here. It's certainly suggestive but I don't know that it can count as evidence.

I've seen some decent support for the idea that digital sales have compensated for those lack of physical sales (again no proof, but support for it nonetheless). And again, we're comparing 2 months of FIFA 19 with 12+ months of previous titles. It might be that most people purchase the game in the first month or so, but this data is from trophies and I don't know what that might influence.

Again we're using potentially unreliable data that we don't know everything about to come to a conclusion that defies all logic in the sense of such a massive drop off. I know we all would want this to be true, which makes me even more cautious.

 

[Chris Davies]

Again we're using potentially unreliable data

Of course, it'd be much better if we had an idea of how many sales of each game there had been over the course of 2-3 months, as they're the figures we're seeing now for the current titles (well, we're seeing player data, not sales data).

With that caveat in mind, here are the VGchartz PS4 FIFA 18 sales figures - month one, 4.3m, month two, 1.3m, month three, 600k, and after that it dwindles (before the sales hit, just before the new game is released). You could argue that VGchartz numbers aren't the most reliable but the sales pattern is because other sources show a similar flow.

So, if we look at those figures and say the first two months (which is the approximate time period of the player data) account for just shy of 50% of the (11.7m) sales, we can then double the "players" from this PS4 trophy method and that comes to a rough total of 25m, which is 7m short of FIFA 18, and suddenly it looks a little more realistic (and less "shocking"). So personally I think there's plenty to go on. But that's just my opinion - it's less-than-perfect data, but given how it's derived, it's certainly VALID data.

A similar pattern is visible with the VGchartz PS4 PES 2018 sales figures, with 300k of 730k sales coming in the first three months (the approximate time period of player data), so the "final" player figure should be a little over doubled, which would be about 1.5m-ish to be generous, a drop of 0.5m on the previous year.

Another "nice-to-know" would be how many people use game-sharing on PS4. I do, with every game I have, so every game I have would be assigned two "players" in the player count. But what percentage of people do that? I can't imagine the general public do it en-masse.

Otherwise, Sony (and Microsoft) would put a stop to it; how long can you feasibly keep what is essentially a "buy one copy, get one free" structure going if a huge chunk of your audience were doing it (and it was costing you millions)?

 

[rockstrongo]

Interesting news.

Long story short, someone has figured out a method to extrapolate the number of players to have played PS4 games using the videos I mentioned in the PS4 thread (these are NOT SALES, i.e. more than one user account can play one purchased copy of a game, HOWEVER it does provide an insight of sorts into how many copies are out there).

Here are FIFA's numbers. Remember, this is exclusively on PS4. Numbers are accurate as of mid-November (so don't include things like copies bought for Christmas):

Even taking the Christmas copies and sale copies into account... Wowzers.

So, I wanted to find out how PES's numbers compared. There is a database of these figures at Gamstat.com, but not every game is featured. Only two PES games are on there at the minute - but if you can find a screenshot of the trophies, you can extrapolate the figures.

In the Reddit thread about this, someone posted a ZIP file full of screenshots from thousands of videos.

Guess what - all the PES games are in there and can be accounted for.

So here we go...

PES 2015 - 1,380,000 (EUR/AUS/ASIA)
PES 2016 - 2,680,000 (WORLDWIDE)
PES 2017 - 2,055,000 (WORLDWIDE)
PES 2018 - 2,080,000 (WORLDWIDE)
PES 2019 - 660,000 (WORLDWIDE)

Here's the working for those who have to verify...

Spoiler

PES 2015 & PES 2016 already exist in the Gamstat.com database.
To get the total, you multiply the amount who have unlocked the trophy by 100, then divide that number by the percentage who have unlocked that trophy, as confirmed on PlayStation.com.

PES 2017 (NPWR11028_00) TROPHY:
Have A Try Online (166,514), 8.1%

PES 2018 (NPWR13106_00) TROPHY:
Won in AFC Champions League (70,819), 3.4%

PES 2019 (NPWR14946_00) TROPHY:
One Of Our Own (78,638), 11.9%

And wonder how many of those sold copies were bundles?,I got my FIFA 19 along with a few other games when getting my Xbox X.

 

[mfmaxpower]

Of course, it'd be much better if we had an idea of how many sales of each game there had been over the course of 2-3 months, as they're the figures we're seeing now for the current titles (well, we're seeing player data, not sales data).

With that caveat in mind, here are the VGchartz PS4 FIFA 18 sales figures - month one, 4.3m, month two, 1.3m, month three, 600k, and after that it dwindles (before the sales hit, just before the new game is released). You could argue that VGchartz numbers aren't the most reliable but the sales pattern is because other sources show a similar flow.

So, if we look at those figures and say the first two months (which is the approximate time period of the player data) account for just shy of 50% of the (11.7m) sales, we can then double the "players" from this PS4 trophy method and that comes to a rough total of 25m, which is 7m short of FIFA 18, and suddenly it looks a little more realistic (and less "shocking"). So personally I think there's plenty to go on. But that's just my opinion - it's less-than-perfect data, but given how it's derived, it's certainly VALID data.

A similar pattern is visible with the VGchartz PS4 PES 2018 sales figures, with 300k of 730k sales coming in the first three months (the approximate time period of player data), so the "final" player figure should be a little over doubled, which would be about 1.5m-ish to be generous, a drop of 0.5m on the previous year.

Another "nice-to-know" would be how many people use game-sharing on PS4. I do, with every game I have, so every game I have would be assigned two "players" in the player count. But what percentage of people do that? I can't imagine the general public do it en-masse.

Otherwise, Sony (and Microsoft) would put a stop to it; how long can you feasibly keep what is essentially a "buy one copy, get one free" structure going if a huge chunk of your audience were doing it (and it was costing you millions)?

Nice work. A 7m drop-off sounds much more possible, though I'm still cautious about it all.

A big element not captured by any of this is how well EA's digital sales from FIFA points are doing. Obviously a declining player base would indicate lower digital add-on sales, but if you're paying attention to FUT (and I know most in here don't) you'd know that EA upped their game with FUT content this year, with all the Icons and special cards, and purely from anecdotal evidence it sounds like people are buying packs stronger than ever. Most of EA's growth has come from digital add-on content sales so it'd be interesting to know if and by how much FiFA points sales might compensate.

Regardless, if it's true that the player base has declined substantially, and when you consider that the level of hate and discontent from the FUT community has never been higher, you'd think EA would really have to step it up for next year.

 

[mfmaxpower]

Interesting that the analyst report on low EA shares makes mention of poor Battlefield and mobile sales performance but no mention of FIFA doing poorly.

 

[Chris Davies]

Interesting that the analyst report on low EA shares makes mention of poor Battlefield and mobile sales performance but no mention of FIFA doing poorly.

I don't know if they'd want to let it slip that their main franchise is selling less than before. Even Battlefield pales in comparison to FIFA sales.

Also, you very rarely see FIFA on sale, but funnily enough, I'm seeing it pop up everywhere on sale in the UK now - most recently, this just popped up in my news feed... £20-£25 off ($30 or so).

 

[Chuny]

Or it shows how much FIFA progressed since 2011 IRL or since PES2014 in the ps4 platform and how much pes regressed or stayed in decline since pes6.While all years after pes2008, PES is behind FIFA,even if we assume that this year’s PES is the best ever (which is not) , or next year’s game,it will simply be the next chapter of pes6 which is a 10+ years of declining.
What I want to conclude is for EA it was easier to manage their dark ages as they were head-to-head with the KONAMi masterpieces,even if the FIFAS pre 2010 were inferior of the respectives PES.A FIFA 2011 and another one (choose whatever you want) was enough to establish a dynasty in the modern era.
For the good ol’ KONAMI as we know them,one step forward- two steps backwards ,without servers,with poor online service and offline content and only interested to sell myClub coins,or will be needed a consecutive streak of 15/17/19 in a progressing flow to establish a possibility of challenging EA again.

Hence the part in bold

12.500.000 vs 660.000?
I think it still shows that general public just want to have their team kits, logos, names...

And not because FIFA's gameplay is bad. But because if you took away all the licenses from it, and gave them to PES, number would revert. Same gameplay, same modes. Just the licenses (including Stadia, of course).

 

[rockstrongo]

Never seen FIFA been discounted on my Xbox store this early before.
FIFA digitally usually stays full price at least until the next game comes out,same thing when buying it from GameStop etc.
But then again,this year most games gets a price cut very early (Xbox store)
As a consumer,great news,as a company (EA) couldn't happen to a nicer company...

 

[mfmaxpower]

I don't know if they'd want to let it slip that their main franchise is selling less than before. Even Battlefield pales in comparison to FIFA sales.

Also, you very rarely see FIFA on sale, but funnily enough, I'm seeing it pop up everywhere on sale in the UK now - most recently, this just popped up in my news feed... £20-£25 off ($30 or so).

Well that above is mostly quoting an analyst and he wouldn't give two shits about what he lets slip. Plus as a public traded company EA don't have much a choice of what they report when they're reporting to their shareholders.

Certainly there's signs indicating poorer sales performance but we've been here before, thinking for sure this is the year that EA is finally punished for their treatment of the franchise, only to later learn that sales were strong.

 

[Chuny]

I don't know if they'd want to let it slip that their main franchise is selling less than before. Even Battlefield pales in comparison to FIFA sales.

Also, you very rarely see FIFA on sale, but funnily enough, I'm seeing it pop up everywhere on sale in the UK now - most recently, this just popped up in my news feed... £20-£25 off ($30 or so).

Just out of curiosity, have you been googling about FIFA sales?
That might be the reason why you are seeing it popping up now, all of a sudden.

 

[Chris Davies]

Just out of curiosity, have you been googling about FIFA sales?
That might be the reason why you are seeing it popping up now, all of a sudden.

I'm sure that's why it appeared in my news feed yeah - but that doesn't change the fact that last year, there were very few price drops for FIFA!

 

[Chuny]

They might be kind of lost at EA, thinking "Damn we just got the biggest license we could get. We improved both graphics and gameplay from 18 to 19. We established a new and more transparent behaviour regarding Updates and feedback, and people are starting to turn their backs on us NOW?".

 

[Chris Davies]

Speaking of sales... Look what's just happened. PES has been further reduced on PS4...

 

[martyl2]

Bought FIFA 19 for Xmas which is the first time I have bought a FIFA game over PES.

I enjoyed the demo and offline multiplayer with my mates when it initially came out and have been following this thread until recently.

What are peoples views on it now a few months after release?

 

[DerleiPT]

still good offline game with sliders but i play only one or two games per day. I dont expect any footbal game to keep me front of tv for few hours. It's just boring to look at green grass for 5 hours

 

[rockstrongo]

Bought FIFA 19 for Xmas which is the first time I have bought a FIFA game over PES.

I enjoyed the demo and offline multiplayer with my mates when it initially came out and have been following this thread until recently.

What are peoples views on it now a few months after release?

It's enjoyable,pretty good game,probably one of the better FIFA games,if not the best on modern consoles.
Just looking at the gameplay.

My opinions on how it treat's manager/player career mode etc,that's a whole different story
I'd expect much more and better.
Gameplay/fun factor good enough this year

 

[slamsoze]

I bought fifa 2019 too,it is on sale on PSstoreEU until 12/01/2019.I hope won’t regret it,cause in FIFA 18 I played less than half a season.In fifa 2017 I achieved 3 good seasons in CM.18 despite seemed better to the eyes didn’t keep me for a reason.So an other year fingers crossed it will achieve to give me the bites that PES can’t deliver.

 

[rockstrongo]

I bought fifa 2019 too,it is on sale on PSstoreEU until 12/01/2019.I hope won’t regret it,cause in FIFA 18 I played less than half a season.In fifa 2017 I achieved 3 good seasons in CM.18 despite seemed better to the eyes didn’t keep me for a reason.So an other year fingers crossed it will achieve to give me the bites that PES can’t deliver.

That's how I play my FIFA 19,the bits/leagues I can't play on Pes I do on FIFA and the otheway around.
Even though FIFA has Serie A, it's dreadful Vs what I feel Pes delivers in pace gameplay etc for that league

Agree on FIFA 17-18,I played 4-5 season on 17 and had fun,FIFA 18 was horrible,I had 1,5 seasons I think.
Everytime a CPU defender magically slides in front of you I wanted to burn the game.

I'm having fun playing FIFA 19,and starting to get back to Pes 19 to

 

[mfmaxpower]

Bought FIFA 19 for Xmas which is the first time I have bought a FIFA game over PES.

I enjoyed the demo and offline multiplayer with my mates when it initially came out and have been following this thread until recently.

What are peoples views on it now a few months after release?

Really depends. Single player gameplay can be pretty good, though Career Mode is way too easy because of how open and passive the CPU can be defensively compared to other modes. FUT content is fantastic however online gameplay is a fucking disaster this year.

 

[slamsoze]

I bought FIFA 19 on sale last week and i completed my sports puzzle this years PES 2019/FIFA 2019. I will play some matches, i hope so, i can compare both games. What i want to say, i reposted in 2K topic, i bought NBA 2K2019 last night, on sale too. The content and the game modes offline/online 2K offers are amazing. It is something both EA and KONAMi should look at and feel very embarrassed.

 

[hitmanuk]

After 5 weeks ish of fifa I've gone back to pes. I do hate the odd cheap AI goal on pes but I just detest the ball physics on fifa. I thought I'd improved with some sliders but they just grate me. I think for me that and lack of fouls have pushed me back to pes

 

[rockstrongo]

I bought FIFA 19 on sale last week and i completed my sports puzzle this years PES 2019/FIFA 2019. I will play some matches, i hope so, i can compare both games. What i want to say, i reposted in 2K topic, i bought NBA 2K2019 last night, on sale too. The content and the game modes offline/online 2K offers are amazing. It is something both EA and KONAMi should look at and feel very embarrassed.

I play myleague a lot ,their version of CM/ML and it's insane how much better it is