• NCAA Football 13 - Early Sales Numbers Down

    Courtesy vgchartz.com, the first three weeks of sales for NCAA Football 13 are now available. Overall, sales are down 95,000 over the same period from a year ago. Despite the second-best PS3 launch in the franchise's history, the total is dragged down by the second-worst 360 launch. In a month that saw retail game sales down 20% over the year prior, NCAA Football 13 was still the top-selling game in July.

    Why the decrease? There's likely numerous factors at hand, such as the economy, gamer burnout following their experience with NCAA Football 12, and/or a portion of the populace making NCAA Football a purchase every few years and no longer annually. In addition, some in the community have stated that they believe the game is becoming stale.

    While NCAA Football 13 addressed some of the major complaints from 12 (namely the Online Dynasty 'Transfer Failed'), its wide feature set lacked the depth and/or changes to numerous game areas (Coaching Carousel, Custom Conferences, TeamBuilder, Practice Mode, Online Play, et al.) along with numerous bugs and annoyances still prevalent, including some legacy issues.

    Fans who relied on reviews to base their purchase decision saw the game's metacritic score drop from the year before with many reviews repeating the theme of bugs and a lack of overall differential from previous iterations.

    Continue on to see the first three-week sales numbers for the PlayStation 3 and X-Box 360 versions of NCAA Football.


    NCAA 07 NCAA 08 NCAA 09 NCAA 10 NCAA 11 NCAA 12 NCAA 13
    PS3 N/A 162,636 242,982 241,085 275,126 342,068 303,444
    360 432,445 423,348 422,908 398,672 343,758 437,182 390,181
    Total 432,445 585,984 665,890 639,757 618,884 779,250 683,625

    * - Through three weeks after release.
    Comments 24 Comments
    1. jaymo76's Avatar
      jaymo76 -
      Quote Originally Posted by JeffHCross View Post
      NCAA hasn't had any competition since 2002 (maybe Gamebreaker released in 2003?). So the exclusivity argument fails a little bit since 2004-2007 were the "glory years".
      I can't help but wonder with NCAA, (which in many ways is a niche market game) how old the average player is? When I got into the series I was in my 20's, single and had a ton of free time on my hands. I could easily run 10+ seasons in a heart beat. Now I am in my mid/late 30's, I am married with children and have very little free time. My expectations for the quality of the game have changed and I am far less tolerant of mediocrity. If I think a game isn't worth my time and $$$ I will pass on it. That wasn't the case when I was younger.
    1. Rudy's Avatar
      Rudy -
      I don't see NCAA Football as a niche title. The game sells close to 2 million copies. Most games would kill for those numbers. It's not Madden or FIFA but it's a lot better than baseball game sales and worlds better than what college basketball used to sell. College football is a crazy popular sport that generates huge revenue and good TV ratings. I do think if they could somehow get the rights to the player names it would help a lot. I also think all the glitches this series has become known for the last couple years are hurting it's reputation which has taken a hit from the PS2 days.
    1. JeffHCross's Avatar
      JeffHCross -
      Quote Originally Posted by Rudy View Post
      The game sells close to 2 million copies. Most games would kill for those numbers.
      Not AAA titles from AAA studios. Some studios have been shuttered after selling four million copies (though that was probably a result of mismanagement). And NCAA doesn't hit 2 million anymore ...

      Sports games are enough of a niche anyway (look at E3 and how little time sports games get), and within the sports genre NCAA is a niche. Sports games used to appeal to a significant amount of the install base (remember Sega using Joe Montana football as a system seller?). That's not hardly the case anymore.

      That said, the fact that no "MLB _____" title has ever reached 1 million sales is pretty shocking. Only three versions of MVP Baseball did. Wonder if it was the competition (and spread of sales) that stopped them from hitting 1 million on the PS2. Not hitting 1 million on the PS3 doesn't surprise me.

      Personally, I don't think the glitches are a bigger problem now than they used to be. There were plenty of game-killing glitches in the "glory years". I remember one year where Ohio State (and probably other teams) could not be used in Year 2 of Dynasty mode. The game simply couldn't do it. That would be utterly unacceptable now, and with a level of outrage that we probably haven't seen since. And yet at the time it was just . Annoyed me, but I moved on. I think jaymo's right that we're getting pickier with our money (doesn't help that the price has gone up), and so the issues (especially with patches being available) have gotten more and more of a hot-button.
    1. Coachdenz's Avatar
      Coachdenz -
      My game is still in the plastic from
      Release day.....I really have no idea why I bought it this
      Year....guess just habit, but with that said unless something major
      Happens NCAA 14 will not be bought by
      Me.