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March Game Sales Trend Downward
kukyfrope writes "This is the third consecutive month video game sales have declined from their marks in respective months from last year. March 2006 sales are down 18% from their marks in March 2005. Are gamers saving for expensive next-gen systems or are there a limited number of games worth buying?" From the article: "The estimate also reflects $122 million in sales contribution from new platforms (Xbox 360, PSP and DS) representing year-over-year growth of $58 million (the PSP and DS were available last March), which was unfortunately more than offset by a steeper decline in sales of current generation software (-33% or $157 million)."
Probably because Wal Mart controls modern game design (or so I've read... somewhere).
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
From what Ive seen this year there has been a distinct lack of games, and the ones out there arent real good. Not to mention everyone i know that used to be hard core gamers no longer have time for it with the last years of university. I think the game developers need to focus on creating a quality game experience, which I hear the Elder scrolls provides, but I've yet to have the time to check it out, hence the problem. thats my .02c
Dearth of games while developers switch all their production teams to the next generation of consoles that aren't out to much of the market yet.
...seriously, this is exactly what happens during this time. I don't see how this is surprising.
News at 11.
Start at affordable gaming prices (insert canned laughter here) + Inflation + Raising gas prices + Debts (increasingly a way of life!) + Raising prices in new game systems and game for said system include: + games that do not intrest me right now + waiting for games to go to the bargain/used bin anyways(well at least I DO... i RARELY buy brand new games) = SALES SLUMP!
Shhh, busy playing Oblivion. Talk later.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Didn't we just discuss this?
I still partly attribute this trend to the MMO effect.
I guess since the commercialisation of Chri$tma$ people spend more for Chri$tma$ presents than they would spend in the follow-up months after Chri$tma$. You can only milk the Chri$tma$ cow so much.
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
As long as the 'Game Sales' keep on counting just the amount of game boxes sold in stores, and do not include ;
- MMO Subscription fees
- Online game purchases via Steam, Direct2Drive etc digital downloads
They will get continuous slide well into future, and lots of 'OMG! SKY IS FALLING!!!oneone!!1111' articles. Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics, as always. 5 Million people paying 15$ a month to Blizzard (in addition to all the other MMOs collecting subscription fees) must show somewhere - that's 75 million dollars a month, WoW alone - and there are plenty of others out there.
Actual gaming dollars spent is not changing, however it's shifting towards online services & downloads. If you have stock in brick & mortar games retailer, you should dump it now. It's a deadend business destined to go only down.
(Grossly overpriced 'next gen' console games are not helping either. XBox 360 looks fine, but 70 euros (inc VAT) per game for 'quick action' style title that you enjoy at best a few weeks = no FCKING way. Never)
Duh.
c id=14878473
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=179648&
Console gamer: "I like not having to upgrade my hardware every two years to play the newest games! F*ck the PC!"
Wasn't that out in march? But I guess, since it was the only game released in March, it had to make up some ground. April might be better when everyone's played through it once and might want to possibly play a different game.
My name is Wootzor von Leetenhaxor
After almost 25 years of games for my PC, starting with Microsoft's Olympic Decathalon, I've become a little more discerning.
Right now, I'm waiting for Duke Nukem Forever and Harpoon 4.
What games were released in March anyway? The only one I can think of is Oblivion, which I haven't bought since my computer is too old to run it and I don't have an XBox360. Other than that, I can't think of anything that was released in March. I tried Googling for a list, but found nothing. Tried loading Gamespot.com - and Firefox crashed. (Some day I'll get around to installing Opera - really.)
I can't think of anything coming out in April, either. I think it's simply a case of there not being enough good games for anyone to be willing to buy anything.
march was a gonzo month for new games. the only games i bought in jan/feb were used or budget re-releases. however in march alone i bought beatmania, karaoke revolution country, me&my katamari, tetris ds, and kingdom hearts 2. there were also a few excellent games released that i haven't picked up yet, namely daxter and syphon filter for psp.
though a lot of those were released at the end of the month, so most sales may happen in april. combined with the release of oblivion and brain training, expect april to be a real recordbreaker
No really, do it. Otherwise I'm taking my money and going home to play one of a billion other fun games I already have. Also, don't try to trick me into buying a game I already have by changing its name and packaging.
Meet new people, and kill them.
I think that there are two main problems causing the drop in sales, the Reality of next generation systems is not that exciting, and game design is far too formulaic.
The XBox 360 can produce some (reasonably) impressive visuals when you have a good development team working on it; the unfortunate thing about every last XBox 360 game is that they offer so little 'New' gameplay. I don't intend to bash the XBox 360 but it seems that every game that is available for it is (virtually) identical to a game that is on the PS2 or XBox (except that the 360 version is prettier). I don't know how many people remember when the Dreamcast came out but compared to the Playstation / N64 / Saturn the environments were huge in Dreamcast games and the designers were (finally) free of a lot of constraints; the XBox / Gamecube / PS2 still are capable enough systems that the developers are not breaking from the confines of the platform. The fact is that few people have $1000 to upgrade to a new platform (including games and controllers and what not) simply to have prettier graphics.
The second problem is Generic game design. Except for games on the Nintendo DS how many games have you played in the last 18 months that were truly unique gameplay experiences? (I'm betting it could be counted on one hand) The fact is that 95% of games are (nearly) identical to a game that was released a year before; it is the Doom 3 / Quake 4 situation, no matter how well the game is made it is boring simply because you feel that you have played through it before (and thus isn't worth your time).
By my nature I'm not an optimist, but I am optimistic about the Revolution; you hear about a game like "Red Steel" and know that even if it is as poorly constructed (and as linear) as XIII it will probably feel fresh and unique (and thus you can enjoy it regardless of its warts). I'm not saying that the Revolution will "Revolutionize" gaming but, when you become as familiar with genres as many of us are, you have played the same game so many times that a game has to be either really good or bring a lot of fresh ideas to the table in order to feel as good as the average game did a few years ago.
There were a lot of games that they had indicated *would* be around about now... but they've been put off until later.
To name a few:
- Half Life 2 expansion
- Final Fantasy XII (that's 12, not X-2)
- Zelda Twilight Princess
At least those are the ones I might have bought. Haven't seen much else out to keep my interest.
Now that there are bills to pay and school work to do I really can't spend as much time as I used to playing games. In highschool when the work was cake and I didn't have to work for a living I could spend as much time as I wanted playing games. On top of not having the time, cause I still find some, a lot of games comming out are just plain shit. While were on the topic of crappy video entertainment the movie industry is in the same boat. If the game of movie industries could make a quality product that people "need" to play/watch people will buy it.
"Dude, that's brilliant, blame PIRATES!"
"But wait, we already have ridiculous goat-choking copy protection in games!"
"But dude, PIRATES!"
(assorted "Oh, yes, pirates!"; "Of COURSE!"; "Brilliant!")
"But wait, couldn't it just be that our games all suck a-*THROTTLE* *CHOKE* *GAG*"
The problem with your idea is that it makes sense.
From my own perspective, as someone who previously was a fairly regular game buyer it is all down to the quality.
Firstly, I don't buy consoles, realising a long time ago that they are all a rip-off price fixed racket.
On the PC front there is just a lack of quality - sequel after sequel, clone after clone of poorly made imitation games that have been designed in about 3 days by studios whose only concern is shipping it asap.
It is a split situation of the big studios pushing polished games that are nothing but derivative works of last years effort (just stick 2006 on it and resell it with a new paint job on the cars) or the second grade studios who used to put out highly innovative quirky games but who are now pushing out nothing but poor value for money drivel (I have seen me spending £15 on one of these games and having done everything of interest in the game in under an hour, and then feeling completely ripped-off).
Basically the money grab has led to a lot of sub-standard shoddy games flooding the market, and people just aren't prepared to pay anymore. The odd good ones are still there (HL2 etc), but not everyone has time to sift through the reviews and 'word on the net' to find the decent games, and so some people just find something else to do with their Saturday afternoon and don't even bother with games anymore.
This is all just in my sphere of "people looking for good, innovative pc games", I can't speak for the console market, where the makers specifically target people who only want to follow fashions and who have too much money - irrespective of the quality of the product.
Big brand game console developer 2: "We hyped about our new product for 2 years, released it quickly but weren't able to make enough to meet demans, seriously it's 4 months later and they're still scarce. We can't understand why people seem to think nobody is buying our new console and software titles"
Fixed.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
The games released so far SUCK! I don't know about anyone else, but I find that the kinds of games I buy are almost always the games that get rated 9.0+, or editor's choice, or something along those lines. Regardless of whether the review is fair or not, I'm not reading the review -- it's just that generally games that score in that zone coincide with games I've decided to buy and like. I'm not really interested in the "so/so" gaming experience. I also tend to hold out for the RPG genre, which has been in somewhat of a drought.
Oblivion was the only thing that came out in March that fit the bill for me, and I'd been waiting for Oblivion since the day they announced it. I'm still playing Oblivion, for that matter, and probably will be for months to come. I applaud Bethesda for listening to the fans, and not placing any copy protection schemes on the game.
Of course... there are the games that I refuse to buy because of Starforce. I check every game before I buy it now, because I absolutely refuse to install that crap on my computer, let alone purchase something so deliberately crippled. Unfortunately, that meant missing out on Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones... but so be it.
Does this mean everyone has finally bought a copy of all The Sims games?
I think gaming tends to go up in summer and christmas break, I think sales would usually be higher around that time as well. We're also on the verge of new consoles hitting the market. Usually games for the old consoles tend to wind down some and people may be hesitant to pay $50 for a new game on an old system if they need to save up $ for the new system.
I may not be the typical gamer, but as far as PAL releases go, I've probably purchased as many games between January and March as I did all last year. Shadow of the Colossus, ICO re-release, We Love Katamari, Atelier Iris, Dragon Quest VIII... and we're supposed to be getting Guitar Hero some time soon. Plus there's even more in the pipeline. And that's just on the PS2. I suspect that while things might be declining in the US, they may not be in other territories. Then again, maybe no one's buying games but me. That might explain why Shadow of the Colossus and We Love Katamari have constantly been in the top-ten PS2 sellers in Australia since they released in Feb.
"New music sucks" "New games sucks" "New xxxxx sucks" Is there a trend here? It can't just be because we're getting old and stodgy. :P
Way to show your bias against Nintendo you asshat.
when is there going to be a decent ninja's vs pirates game then?
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
I cut-n-paste for my site DailyGamingNews.net, and send out a daily email to subscribers. Basically, I find stories, previews, reviews that I think folks will find interesting and send them out in a daily newsletter.
I cannot even begin to tell you how many game titles have a colon (:) in them. For example: "Hit Title : Yet Another Version". It makes me sick... I never noticed how bad and rampant it was until I started doing this daily site.
The game industry needs to clone Wil Wright.
I sig, therefore I am.
We can't understand why people seem to think nobody is buying our new console
May have something to do with the fricking huge piles of unsold consoles I'm seeing 'round here. Seriously, some of these stacks are at least 20 XCircles and not even the Core version!
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
It's just every time I get ready to leave the house it occurs to me that I could play Oblivion til I get one more level and next thing I know it's 4 in the morning and all the stores are closed.
Yes, my only tool is a hammer. And you're starting to look like a nail.
Console gamer: "I like not having to upgrade my hardware every two years to play the newest games! F*ck the PC!"
PC gamer: "I like playing casual type games developed by hobbyists and smaller firms. Sometimes I even like learning about what makes games tick, so I have even developed a couple simple games myself. F*ck consoles and the lockout chips they rode in on!"
Yeah, I haven't seen a good pirate game in a while
Don't you think the fellow behind the Civilization series could produce a decent pirate game? Oh wait, he did.