

Video Game Sales Slip Sixth Month in a Row - brandnewly
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/09/video-game-sales.html

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Tiktaalik
Zzzzzzzzz It's August the sleepiest month of the year for video games, which
has been true since the beginning of time.

Look to see a big bump in sales in Sept when all the fall games start to come
out and when the new PS3 price drop has effect.

As well the sales could still be year over year worse than last Sept and it
wouldn't be the end of the world. The games industry traditionally follows a
console cycle (though that will likely be broken up this time around with the
launch of Natal and Sony's Waggle next year) and so once you're past the peak
some years after a launch, your sales will necessarily decline until the next
console launch.

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xsmasher
The NPD data shows that this August is down 16% from last August - so it's not
just summer sleepyness.

I think NPD only tracks retail sales though, so any money diverted to
downloadable content, Steam, or iPhone games would seem to "disappear" from
their charts.

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Tiktaalik
I'm sure game sales are affected by the recession, but the console industry
follows a cycle, going up after the launch of a new set of consoles, peaking,
and then dropping down until the hype cycle begins for the next console
launch.

Largely everything seems to be following the same set plan.

Next year might be an upset year of this traditional cycle though, since
Microsoft and Sony are releasing hardware upgrades in the form of their motion
controllers. Microsoft has been quoted as saying that the launch of their
Natal upgrade would be akin to a console launch event.

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maxniederhofer
Remember all those "video games are recession-resistant" stories a year ago?
The truth was always that, at least in the US, game sales depend largely on
the console cycle and are thus falling with lower console sales.

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teamonkey
It's not a 16% droping trend, or the recession. There tend to be good years
and bad years for game releases. If you look at the NPD stats for more than
one year in the past you can see that. Last year was amazingly good - loads of
well-received big hitters. This year's a slow year and is consistent with
sales from other off years.

Many of the big titles that were due this year have been put back to a 2010
release. This Christmas we have only have three big-hitters: Assassin's Creed
2, Uncharted 2 and Modern Warfare 2. Good for publishers of those three I
guess. We also have the recent releases of the PS3 Slim and Rock Band: The
Beatles.

Next year we get all the games that were delayed this year (Mass Effect 2,
Bioshock 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction etc.) on top of a number of good
releases that were originally due. I predict that 2010 will be an on year.

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mhunter
It's very difficult because there hasn't been any major graphic enhancements
or radical new story lines to convince consumers to purchase new games.

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electromagnetic
I think there's a simpler explanation; video game prices haven't dropped in
over 6 months. Fable II was released almost a year ago now, it's still the
exact same price. I remember quite clearly, because I bought my Elite 360
almost a year ago and I remember looking at it on the shelf in bestbuy for
59.99 it's _still_ 59.99 in bestbuy. I got Fallout 3 in the 1Q and it cost
69.99 (I griped because it went _up_ in price from 59.99) and it's _still_
69.99.

This is from my experience in the games industry: big games prop up the big
sales figures. The majority (over 70% IIRC) of sales are made _after_ a game
drops below half of its original sale price. Add the two together for long
enough and you get this sort of major sales slide.

~~~
potatolicious
There's an alternate explanation I'd like to add: there simply haven't been
many good games in 2009.

Avid gamers, think back to 2008 and 2007... I spent way too much time in front
of my TV back then, because there were quality titles coming out.

In 2009 I did not buy a _single_ game until Batman: Arkham Asylum _this
month_. This is the first time in _ever_ that I can remember not buying _any_
games for the first 8 months of the year.

And the worst part is, this will get worse. Many of the most anticipated games
of the holiday season have gotten pushed into Q1 2010. Q4 2009 is going to go
down in history as a very, very painful quarter for game publishers.

~~~
electromagnetic
That's very true, but I believe sales would have been _much_ better this year
if last years games weren't still priced the same as the new games of this
year.

I have a serious problem when buying games, because I worked as a reviewer so
I'm used to recommending 'buy this one now, buy this one later, and just don't
even think about it' and I happen to agree. There hasn't been a single game
that I _had_ to buy this year. EVE Online has been winning my interest with
the new expansion, and I usually detest MMO's. The games always held my
attention, but I've never been able to justify the monthly payments, yet the
lack of decent games this year and the fact that their expansions add a lot to
the game without costing you more (I'd never play WoW because they charge you
multiple times, for buying the original game, the expansions and monthly, and
it never felt fun to play).

I've heard no mention of MMO sales, but I've admittedly not paid attention to
that sector. So I would be interested to see if there has been a boom or bust.
Have people been cancelling subscriptions or have people switched from buying
a new game every month at $70 to a low monthly fee? I may have to look it up

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e40
#2 Wii Sports Resort... man, does that game suck. It is nothing more than a
demo for the Wii Motion Plus. Period.

