Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Rising Game Sales Reveal Trends?

Posted by simoniker on from the bling-bling-name-of-game dept.

Thanks to Smartmoney.com for their report into GameStop's second-quarter financial results, which revealed "a 31% surge in videogame software sales", although a drop from last year's hardware-discounted highs, and "better-than-expected performance in stores." According to the report, "...the company said videogame-software sales were 'very strong' for the quarter, with leading titles such as 'Enter The Matrix' from Atari Inc., 'NBA Street: Volume 2' and 'NCAA Football 2004' from Electronic Arts Inc. and 'Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic' from LucasArts." Most interestingly, GameStop indicated they're expecting "...further hardware price reductions 'or similar promotional activities' during the third quarter", a move that may include the rumored $99 GameCube price drop which IGN Cube are confidently predicting for the end of September.

3 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Good to see by mausmalone · · Score: 2, Informative

    the thing they don't tell you is that it's also the #1 game sold back to the stores. People get it, and are dissatisfied with it pretty early on, from what I've heard. It's definitely on the "rent first" list, since you'll easily find used copies later, so you can rent and buy used, and still save money over a new copy.

    --
    -=-=-=-=-=
    I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
  2. Re:Strange.... by simoniker · · Score: 3, Informative

    I think it depends how you spin it - sales are up from the previous quarter, but slightly down from the same quarter the previous year. That can be read as either bad, or good, depending on whether you're Reuters looking for a good angle or GameStop looking to hype financial results.

  3. From Personal Experience by chadlnx · · Score: 2, Informative

    From personal experience, running a comparison shopping service for both new and preowned console games from NES to Xbox, game sales have been rising sharply.

    I have specificly noticed a sharp increase in GameCube and GameBoy Advance click-throughs and purchases in the last two months. I can only speculate that any pending price drop by Nintendo will increase clicks and sales.

    Also, many gamers on my site have set price alerts (15 dollars and below) and a large number of Xbox, PS2, and GameCube games. It seems that people really hold out on purchasing games when the price is right.

    I plan on adding daily new and preowned price drop information for all games next month and I look forward to watching how gamers react to daily price changes being fed to them.