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February Game Sales Flop
Some financial news from the gaming industry today; NPD Analysts predict that game sales for February will be much lower than hoped-for, down eleven percent from last year. Take-Two Interactive, the publisher for studios Rockstar and Firaxis, posted a loss of $29.1 Million in their first quarter, which ended at the end of January. Not everything was doom and gloom. Newly linked Bioware/Pandemic did great in 2005, with more than 28 million games sold. From that 1up piece: "Neither company has laid out much of their plans for the next-generation consoles, though BioWare's brief showing of their planned Xbox 360 trilogy Mass Effect suggests the companies are poised to be just as ambitious on the coming consoles as ever before. "
My game consumption was down to zero in February because all the local retailers were telling me that they'd be getting the Xbox 360 in regular stock come March. I put a permanent freeze on my PS2 game purchases as a result. Then March came and I bought the 360 and a couple games, with a couple more purchases likely to follow.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
We're seeing the effects already. The analysts were right!
The fact that we have two different next-gen consoles coming down the pipeline can't possibly be helping game sales. That, and the quality of the games.
Are there any new games out there worth buying when they're not in the bargin bin already?
NPD Analysts predict that game sales for February will be much lower than hoped-for
Crazy me. I thought it was already March.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
I know that console and PC gamers tend to be different breed, but could the huge success of WoW be a contributing factor to declining revenue in the game industry?
Blizzard's intent is to continue thier current subscription by introducing long-lasting content. With 6 million users, does anyone else think that this could have a definitive effect on other games (both PC and console).
It's not called Warcrack for nothing.
March will be an absolute monster
Fight Night Round 3, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Burnout, College hoops 2k6 for 360, etc.
I wonder if this has anything to do with cramming every single AAA game title into November's release schedule?
It's like the other 11 months of the year don't matter.
This is nothing special, half the gaming market is now addicted to World of Warcraft, and has lost contact to the physical world. Analysts expect this effect to become smaller in a few years, though the market will probably never go back to what it was, considering the number of starvation casualties expected.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
How does their first quarter end in January? I don't know of any insustry where the fiscal year begins in November.
I guess we might as well get used to seeing this from now on:
every month= game sales down, **AA crying that movie profits are down and music sales (CD's) are down, none of them can get a clue I guess, a lot of are tired of DRM, high prices, and slipping quality and us sheep are looking for better pastures.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I've got too many games from last year (and before) that I haven't got around to playing seriously.
Why would I buy more now?
Let me get through those games, or at least get my money's worth from them. Then I'll think about new games. By that time the Revolution will be out anyway, and I'll only have time for games that provide immediate fun.
I bought Half-Life 2 through Steam and paid for a month of City of Heroes. Does NPD track this these kinds of purchases?
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
Since I started playing MMOs. I played City of Heroes for almost a year, then moved to WoW. Played Wow for close to a year, jumped over to City of Villains for a few months and now I am playing EverQuest 2.
I still play other games besides the MMOs, but my purchasing frequency has gone down. I probably buy a game every other month now, rather than 1-2 a month two years ago. It also takes me longer to wear out a single player game because of time spent with MMOs. I've barely scratched the surface on Civ 4 and am only about halfway through Quake 4. Both games I've had since Christmas.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
As a GC owner, I'm looking forward to Zelda Twilight Princess, but other than that, I can't think of any other game I'm supposed to be looking forward to or is making any kind of movement on the Excite-o-Meter. DNF? I gave up looking forward to that years and *years* ago. Shenmue 3 (yes, I played and loved 1 & 2)? Who knows if that will ever see the light of day.
/. have been along the same way; lots of retro talk, but no buzz (planted or not) about anything. Anything! We're in a stasis; the 360 is here but there's nothing exciting coming down the pipe, the PS3 has been delayed, taking whatever launch titles we were hoping for with it, and the Revolution...well, that thing is so nebulous I can't even form an opinion of it (controller notwithstanding).
The malaise stretches across the board: Nobody's talking about a new GTA game (GTA: Akron maybe?), no Dooms or Quakes or Half Lifes, or even Katamari Damarcys; no AAA titles to make me even inquisitive.
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In short, you (the game industry) got nothin', and now we all know it.
How about Galactic Civilizations II? Three editor's choices from GameSpot, GameSpy and IGN. Yes, I work for Stardock, but it's still a cool game. :-)
Are sales in general down, or just sales of the cookie-cutter crap that the big studios have been pushing out? In Australia, February was a great month for games - Ico finally got a re-release, along with We Love Katamari and Shadow of the Colossus. Shadow was the most-sold game on the platform in the week it released, and Shadow and Katamari are sitting at #3 and #4 on the charts this week too. I know that Australian sales are a drop in the ocean overall, but this trend seems to be going on throughout the PAL territory.
Down here in Australia, we're two weeks away from the Xbox 360 launch (23rd March it hits shelves). The console itself is going to set us back AU$649.00 and games are an average of AU$120 each.
One hundred and twenty fucking dollars? Give me a break. I had a hard enough time justifying a game at $80 or $90, but to bust out a three figure pricetag is just ridiculous. I've got a "good" job, my wife and I have plenty of disposable income and we're both quite enthusiastic gamers but we've just been priced out of the market quite frankly.
If people with a few grand a month to basically throw away are being put off by the cost of this "next gen" crap, what's that going to do for the guy who will need to spend two weeks of his income just to pick up the console and a couple of games?
I really do hope the 360 launch flops down here, it sure as hell deserves to.
Just because a game is a sequel doesn't make it not good. Just because you don't care about that shit mean no one does. Get off your high horse, will ya? I'm quite looking forward to playing GRAW and Oblivion.
And forget GarageBand, give Elektroplankton a rent at least. Its quite fun.
...but then I returned it because I got bored with it, having seen everything it had to offer in just three days. So I guess that doesn't technically count as a sale.
You must think in Russian.
I, for one, welcome our new Super Robot Destroyer Machine overlords!