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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!"
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.
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.
The only other game worth a lick of salt that I noticed was Kingdom Hearts II for the PS2. As for other games off the top of my head:
Daxter (PSP)
GRAW (Xbox 360)
Burnout Revenge (Xbox 360) - just a remake to be pretty on the 360.
Oblivion (PC and 360)
Kingdom Hearts II (PS2)
Naturally there were others, but nothing else that really interested me. I think the PSP version of Katamari Damacy came out in march, but it could have been early April. I bought the japanese version in Feb so I didn't keep track of that one.
For post-xmas game release months however, I'd say March was actually pretty decent.
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.
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.
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
when is there going to be a decent ninja's vs pirates game then?
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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.