Microsoft Says You've Killed 3 Billion Zombies So Far, Go Kill More

[Karloff]

Microsoft Says You've Killed 3 Billion Zombies So Far, Go Kill More

Microsoft's humbled and gratified by the public's response to its new console.

"We are humbled and gratified by the overwhelming response from our fans to the launch of Xbox One," says Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi. "Eleven days in we are seeing record breaking sales and are selling every Xbox One we can make." But what have those buyers been doing? Killing zombies and racing cars is the answer, and between the lot of you, you've chewed through 3 billion Dead Rising deadfellas so far.

Along the way, you've managed to rack up over 415 million Gamerscore points, race over 90 million miles, get over 150 million Killer Instinct combos, and so forth. Well done! But the one number Microsoft hasn't revealed yet is an actual sales figure. We still don't know how many consoles Microsoft moved, which may or may not mean that it hasn't yet beaten the PS4's 2.1 million [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130171-PS4-Sells-2-1-Million-Units-Worldwide].

That said, there aren't many Xbox Ones left on the shelves. "Demand is far exceeding supply in the 13 countries we've launched and we are sold out at retailers around the world," says Mehdi.

If you're having trouble finding one, Major Nelson has some tips for you [http://news.xbox.com/2013/12/xbox-one-major-nelson-tips-and-tricks]. Microsoft's busy trying to get more consoles out to retailers; no way is it going to be left with a sack of coal come Christmas.

Source: Xbox Wire [http://news.xbox.com/2013/12/xbox-one-billions-of-zombies]


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[Ed130 The Vanguard]

But the one number Microsoft hasn't revealed yet is an actual sales figure. We still don't know how many consoles Microsoft moved, which may or may not mean that it hasn't yet beaten the PS4's 2.1 million [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130171-PS4-Sells-2-1-Million-Units-Worldwide].

So the actual piece of information that everyone wants to know is absent?

Good.

 

[Vivi22]

But the one number Microsoft hasn't revealed yet is an actual sales figure. We still don't know how many consoles Microsoft moved, which may or may not mean that it hasn't yet beaten the PS4's 2.1 million [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130171-PS4-Sells-2-1-Million-Units-Worldwide].

So the actual piece of information that everyone wants to know is absent?

Good.

I'd like to know the sales and failure rates myself, so two pieces of information. Just a tiny request really.

 

[Strazdas]

Colelcting statistics.... argh.... almost makes me like microsoft..... heracy.... how dare they be so tempting....

No, but seriuosly. i think every single game should collect A LOT of statistics about itself, and its always nice to see statistics like these. However better statistic would be zombies-per-player.

 

[Lightknight]

So, pretty soon the world will be void of Zombies then seeing as just under half the planet in Zombies have been removed.

Does anyone else find this to be a relatively small number though. I remember plowing through hundreds of Zombies during the first game in a crowded parking lot until my car was about to burn and then jumping out into another vehicle to continue it. That was a several thousand gone by one person in a short amount of time. Are they more difficult this time around? Less numerous? Something I'm missing?

Can 500,000 copies (I assume this game is popular?) not easily result in an average of 6,000 Zombies killed in a couple weeks? And it has been out for weeks. I assume, like me, some would already be in hundreds of thousands by themselves while some games go unused or just have a handful of deaths.

EDIT: Right now we only have the first week's results ending with November 23. 282,000 have sold for sure with no idea how many since. So we'd be at just over 10,000 on average after having been around since November 22nd. So about an average of 1,000 zombies per day per unit sold.

However, that number of games sold is probably much higher since we are currently in the third week after release. If 500,000 then it'd be 545 per day per unit.

 

[Strazdas]

No, but seriuosly. i think every single game should collect A LOT of statistics about itself, and its always nice to see statistics like these. However better statistic would be zombies-per-player.

EAxis used to publish such statistics for Spore. Until I broke it down and pointed out that the average player was only making four creations before quitting the game.

MS said they've sold at least a million units in NA. Figure even distribution on the four games listed gives us 250,000 players per title. That give us an high-ball estimate of 120,000 zombies per player, 360 miles per player, 744 enemies per player, and 600 combos per player. Actual world-wide numbers can be much lower.

(Doesn't seem like people are playing Forza 5 much...)

4 creations? Really? I think i made... 2? Still such statistics would be great regardlesss. we already know most people dont finish their games, so thats nothing new really.

After Black friday they may have sold that many consdiering they were the only ones in stock here. but we dont know yet. however dividing by million wont give us much, we should divide by people that bought that specific game more like. and i dobuti ts even distribution.

 

[Falterfire]

That give us an high-ball estimate of 120,000 zombies per player

That is absolutely an insane number. I haven't played Dead Rising 3, but I have played the other games, and unless Dead Rising 3 features ways to kill incredibly large numbers of zombies in a very short period of time, even at a rate of one zombie per second (Already a crazy rate based on previous games) it would take over 33 hours to kill that many zombies.

I'm not willing to estimate more than 2-3k zombies per player on average unless there's a mass extinction mode I don't know about.

 

[Falterfire]

At 3,000 zombies killed per player, we get a figure of 1,000,000 players playing Dead Rising 3. Is that a more believable number?

I don't know. I don't know enough about how many XBones were sold. If it was an XBox 360 game that would absolutely be a more believable number. And again: Having not personally played the game I don't know how long it takes to rack up 12,000 zombie kills. If it has airstrikes and such that can kill several hundred at a time then 12,000 may be an incredibly easy number to hit.

 

[Lightknight]

No, but seriuosly. i think every single game should collect A LOT of statistics about itself, and its always nice to see statistics like these. However better statistic would be zombies-per-player.

EAxis used to publish such statistics for Spore. Until I broke it down and pointed out that the average player was only making four creations before quitting the game.

MS said they've sold at least a million units in NA. Figure even distribution on the four games listed gives us 250,000 players per title. That give us an high-ball estimate of 120,000 zombies per player, 360 miles per player, 744 enemies per player, and 600 combos per player. Actual world-wide numbers can be much lower.

(Doesn't seem like people are playing Forza 5 much...)

250,000 times 120,000 is 30 billion. Not 3 billion. It's 12,000 by your count and that's over 11 days. If it's anything like the earlier games then knocking out a thousand zombies in one hour isn't impossible if you enjoy a car. Also, we know that the first week ending in November 23rd saw 282,000 units sold. No telling how many tens of thousands of units have sold since.

Your other numbers appear correct though. I just did the miles and stopped there though so you only added on zero to many in the first.

EDIT: After seeing the video I posted below, it is much easier to kill thousands of Zombies than before. We're talking a thousand in two minutes without much trouble.

 

[Falterfire]

4 creations? Really? I think i made... 2? Still such statistics would be great regardlesss. we already know most people dont finish their games, so thats nothing new really.

You may have only made two but I think four still sounds way too low. If you even start the game you probably iterate through at least four different versions of your creature in the first section. Given the number of players like myself that spent way too long tinkering with the various creators I find it odd that the average was still less than the number of different creators in the game.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

I'm not willing to estimate more than 2-3k zombies per player on average unless there's a mass extinction mode I don't know about.

At 3,000 zombies killed per player, we get a figure of 1,000,000 players playing Dead Rising 3. Is that a more believable number?

(Edit: My figure was off by a factor of 10. Should have been 12,000 zombies per player. Sorry. ...stupid Windows calculator.exe...)

There are actually a number of ways to take out entire hordes quickly using the combo vehicles. The RollerHawg makes zombie pate quite handily.

And as of yesterday, my count was just above 30,000 after one go through the story and barely scratching Nightmare Mode. I'd like to imagine that I'm slightly above the average. Not meaning that I'm better at the game, but that I've played it more since Dead Rising is my favorite series.

I wouldn't expect Dead Rising to have more than a 40-50% attach rate though. And that's being generous. It's a great game, but has always been a niche title. Helped by being a launch game, sure. But even still, this is the Xbox where I'd imagine a good amount of players are using it as a Call of Duty box just like "last gen".

 

[Lightknight]

I'm not willing to estimate more than 2-3k zombies per player on average unless there's a mass extinction mode I don't know about.

At 3,000 zombies killed per player, we get a figure of 1,000,000 players playing Dead Rising 3. Is that a more believable number?

Over 11 days with nearly 300,000 units sold in the first week ending in November 23rd? This is not an impossible number. Especially if Microsoft has people playing these games to drive numbers up which technically isn't unethical as long as they aren't cheating.

But look, here's a video of a person who kills 560 Zombies in 1 minute (3:10 minute mark to 4:10 minute mark):

<youtube=1BvNq4gaSMU>

Doesn't look too difficult and this guy is at level 50 (meaning he alone likely has a large number) and didn't need to stop when he did. He then goes right back to it and that's the end of the video. Hard to believe so many on average when these kind of numbers can be achieved by one person with likely well over 300,000 copies sold? Not hardly. Not with 11 days already underway and over 282,000 units shipped in the first two days and who knows how many since.

Imagine if Microsoft has even one employee dedicated to bringing numbers up. With 500 zombies per minute like in the video above just one person could be getting numbers in the hundred thousands in one 8-hour work day (500*60*8= 240,000. The video above showed 560 in one minute during what I assume is optimum conditions. So I dropped the average to 500 for whatever reason and assume that if the day/night cycles are even that they could get around half this average if they are still killing during the day. But averaging half that by a pro whose only goal is killing them in mass wouldn't be unreasonable depending on the night-day cycles. If the pros have an even better method then who knows what that number could be. I also wonder if the 11 days of sales is when the counter started or if all those review and early release copies have also beefed up the numbers.

(Edit: My figure was off by a factor of 10. Should have been 12,000 zombies per player. Sorry. ...stupid Windows calculator.exe...)

Yeah, I really wish they'd throw commas in there automatically. Any number in the millions and I find myself double checking the 0's every time.

 

[Lightknight]

I wouldn't expect Dead Rising to have more than a 40-50% attach rate though. And that's being generous. It's a great game, but has always been a niche title. Helped by being a launch game, sure. But even still, this is the Xbox where I'd imagine a good amount of players are using it as a Call of Duty box just like "last gen".

All we know is that 282k units sold in the first week (ending November 23rd after it launched on the 22nd). So that's around 25% attach in the first couple of days which will likely have increased to around 30% or higher by now. So we only need around 10,600 on average to reach those numbers with just the 282k from launch. That's over 11 days as I stated so less than 1,000 per day. There's no telling how many more copies sold on black friday and such.

So if you are only a little over average then do you think the average could potentially be around 1/3rd your average? Heck, if we're at 400k units it'd be 7,500 per copy on average which would be 1/4th your score. The people grinding thousands of zombies per a handful of minutes could easily offset the unused copies waiting for the 25th or the really bad players. This isn't like the first game where the only way to get them in mass was in that garage corridor with a car that took forever to get 1,000.

 

[CriticalMiss]

That said, there aren't many Xbox Ones left on the shelves. "Demand is far exceeding supply in the 13 countries we've launched and we are sold out at retailers around the world," says Mehdi.

That musn't include the UK then, my local game emporium said they had about half a dozen left in stock that have been gathering dust since they got them.

I'm beginning to suspect that Microsoft are going to deliberately evade any questions about sales numbers and keep to a vague 'we sold them all!' rather than give an actual number.

 

[AgentLampshade]

That musn't include the UK then, my local game emporium said they had about half a dozen left in stock that have been gathering dust since they got them.

Yeah, my work have tons of units still in stock too and they're desperately trying to sell them. I imagine Christmas will sell a good few though.

OT: Is this what gaming's really about these days? Lists of what's been done? Man, I couldn't have less of a reason to pick up a next gen/current gen console.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

I wouldn't expect Dead Rising to have more than a 40-50% attach rate though. And that's being generous. It's a great game, but has always been a niche title. Helped by being a launch game, sure. But even still, this is the Xbox where I'd imagine a good amount of players are using it as a Call of Duty box just like "last gen".

All we know is that 282k units sold in the first week (ending November 23rd after it launched on the 22nd). So that's around 25% attach in the first couple of days which will likely have increased to around 30% or higher by now. So we only need around 10,600 on average to reach those numbers with just the 282k from launch. That's over 11 days as I stated so less than 1,000 per day. There's no telling how many more copies sold on black friday and such.

So if you are only a little over average then do you think the average could potentially be around 1/3rd your average? Heck, if we're at 400k units it'd be 7,500 per copy on average which would be 1/4th your score. The people grinding thousands of zombies per a handful of minutes could easily offset the unused copies waiting for the 25th or the really bad players. This isn't like the first game where the only way to get them in mass was in that garage corridor with a car that took forever to get 1,000.

I resent the implication that I am only an average zombie slayer sir, and I'll thank you to cease these libelous remarks post-haste.

To steal a line from Woody Harrelson in Zombieland: "My mama always told me I'd be good at something. Who knew it'd turn out to be killin' zombies? "

 

[Toadfish1]

So we're 2 weeks in to the next genertation, and Microsoft is already resorting to irrelevant fluff statistics so they don't have to provide any useful data.

Oh, and I think Mr. Medhi might be telling a naughty fib about all consoles being sold out.

http://gamerfitnation.com/2013/12/best-buy-employee-confirms/