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U.S. Video Game Sales Down 10% in May
kukyfrope writes "After a strong 15.5% increase in U.S. video game sales in April 2006, May has gone the other way, posting sales numbers 10% below those of May 2005. Xbox 360 game sales and console sales alone slumped 37% and 25% respectively, but despite these declines, annual year-to-date game sales are only down 5%. Even so, analysts are not surprised, citing the transition from current-gen to next-gen systems as a dip in the market. 'We expect U.S. video game software dollar sales to decline 4% in 2006. We think that the transition is only partially complete, and believe that several bumps in the road [still] lie ahead,' said Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter."
I'm am still playing the game i bought in April.
;)
I will do better next month i promise
"We think that the transition is only partially complete"
And you'd be right... strangely enough, most people will stick with their current consoles for months and years* more.
*OK, well, at least another year before upgrading for the majority of console owners, and some will not be getting the next gen until the years ahead.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
Live Arcade is a different story, I'll probably buy a dozen of those.
By comparison, I bought around 10 to 15 Gamecube games a year over the past few years. It's hard to imagine with cheapies like me around, how Sony and MS will make alot of money on AAA titles. I'm waiting until Oblivion goes down to 30 bucks, after shipping, new, on ebay.
As the article pointed out, this probably has to do with gamers saving money for the next gen consoles and developers saving good titles for next-gen releases.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
I think we should expect to see more numbers like this in the near future, especially in entertainment sectors. Things are getting tight in peoples' budgets due to various reasons, but especially because of high energy prices. One of the first places people look to save money is in their entertainment budget (whether they think of it consciously as that or not) by cutting down on eating out, movies, music and GAMES. After that they will start to cut into other more direct quality of life areas of their budgets.
Isn't month-by-month analysis self-defeating? I mean really, some months there just aren't many new games worth buying.
I'd be very surprised if there WEREN'T monthly fluctuations.
I *did* buy two games in april, though, Tetris DS and Phoenix Wright! Sorry Nintendo, stop making games that have excellent replay value! Please don't hurt me ^^
Are the "missing" gamers too busy playing World of Warcraft to go to the store and purchase something else? Is there a correlation between ever increasing WoW subscription rates and declining retail game sales? ;-)
Everyone is waiting on Wii.
If they expect videogame sales to never decline then they need to weed out the crud that comes out every month. You can't just purchase a videogame on the whim anymore without wondering if you just bought a stinker with pretty graphics. Hell, you can't buy anything on a whim anymore for fear that you won't have enough money later to pay for gas
You constantly struggle for self improvement - and it shows.
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There are some correlations. Take for example the concept of a "Summer Blockbuster". You could analyze the sales in June with last years sales and get a feel for the market. Granted, it may be due to the fact there are just no good movies. Its not like the movie industry changes platform generations.
There is probably a fairly consistent monthly sales pattern in the video game industry. Also, based on the largeness of the market there are always people buying games, maybe to the point that every month could have an expected sales amount besed on the economy.
And over there we have the labyrinth guards. One always lies, one always tells the truth, and one stabs people who ask t
It's those damn swashbuckers, I tell'ya!
Maybe there haven't been any new really good games people would buy.
Maybe they're just too expensive.
Maybe people just didn't feel like to buy any games.
What kind of useful conclusions are we supposed to take from these news?
Hmmm... I guess that's why I'm not an expert or analyst or whatever they call themselves.
Yes,
Thirty bucks per month (2 accounts) does a lot less damage to the budget than 100+ bucks a month for games that may have no more than a few hours of enjoyable playtime in it. Since I started playing MMOs regularly, I may buy only a handful of "regular" games per year instead of 2-3 per month.
Since my girlfriend likes WoW, that has become the mainstay, but I have discovered that I am more interested in MMOs than stand-alone games.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Isn't month-by-month analysis self-defeating? I mean really, some months there just aren't many new games worth buying.
I'd be very surprised if there WEREN'T monthly fluctuations.
Like the stock market, there will be fluctuations, but there should be an upward trend. If there isn't, you start to look at the reasons why. But even within each fluctuation, there are reasons for everything - the only question is whether or not they matter in the long-term. Usually, they don't - unless they keep coming up again and again and turn into a trend. But it is worthwhile to find out what those reasons are so you can identify trends earlier.
I do think that, when you look at the Xbox 360, which supposedly had so much pent-up demand due to shortages, and then it only sold 290-some thousand units in April when the shortage was alleviated, and then actually dropped in May, you can start to look at things and say "hmmm, that's odd." Is that a trend? Maybe, maybe not, but if it's not a trend downward, then it's not a trend upward either. Either way I think you can start to worry if you're MS.
The question is, what big hit came out in May of last year, or what came out in April of this year? Major hits don't come out every month, nor do they come out on the same months each year, and they have a huge effect on monthly sales. Simply seeing month over month numbers without this information doesn't tell you much about how the industry as a whole is doing.
Sunwalker Dezco for Warchief in 2016
I have a feeling there will be a huge spike (DS Lite) on June 11th that will last for a few weeks.
They're actually comparing same month on a year-to year basis. Not April --> May but May 2005 --> May 2006, which has a tendency to be more accurate and account for seasonal trends. It's still trend-spotting and as a forecasting tool isn't fantastic, but it's not nearly as bad as April --> May comparisons and the like.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
once all the 360 people bought oblivion, they spent 80 hours on it and didn't buy anything else.
-schwal "Hanging is too good for punners, they should be drawn and quoted"
some months there just aren't many new games worth buying
Of course.
There are also fluctuations due to the cycle of generations of game consoles.
I'm surprised the difference isn't more than 10% TBH. There's nothing intresting going on in the industry at the moment (by which I mean stuff that you can actually buy right now). Secondly, the PS3 and Wii are starting to break into the mainstream;s attention, so we can expect to see more 'disappointing' (and entirely predictable) months as people ramp down buying for their existing console.
PS2 = 232,000
X360 = 221,000 - Ouch!
All the excuses about supply problems don't cut it anymore. Game publishers have to be noticing the marketplace sales disaster Microsoft is having with the 360 and rethinking continuing to support the troubled console.
Things will continue to be grim until November when Sony releases the PS3 and Nintendo releases the Wii.
And the pc market continues to die outside of World of Warcraft. I don't think anything will halt the over five year steady downtrend.
I love how the NPD doesn't define how long a 'transitional year' is. When 2005 year sales fell, NPD also blamed it on the 'transition'.
So how long is that transition, NPD? Out of the 5 year console cycle, is it one year, two year, THREE years?
In business as in the military, you have to have what is called a contigency plan. What if the decline in sales is not a transition but an actual slowdown of the video game market? NPD is not serving its customers proper information when they keep insisting it is the 'transition'.
Keep in mind that Japan's market has been slowing down significantly for the last few years. Only with the phenomenon of the DS has Japan's slump reversed. Europe's market is soon going to be surpassing America's if NPD's 'transitional period' keeps going on for several more years.
Fact: The next-gen handhelds are already released and both the DS and PSP are selling flatly.
FACT: One next-gen console, the Xbox 360, is out, in stock everywhere, and cannot outsell the PS2 in America. With the lack of significant Xbox 360 software for all of this summer, Xbox 360 may actually fall in sales just as it did this month from last month. At this same time, the Xbox (having a price reduction) was outselling the Xbox 360 by this month. At this rate, the Xbox 360 will perform, at best, on the same level as the Xbox but most likely will sell less.
FACT: The sales numbers they using for the percentage increase (and percentage decrese) is total sales dollars, not sales units. Of course, sales went up in April with the expensive $400 Xbox 360 was in stock. All the prices are going up for next generation. The DS costs more than a Gamecube. The PSP costs like $200 with $50 games. The Xbox 360 is $400 with $60 games. The PS3 is going to be a whopping $600. The only system that will be the same (or less?) price wise is the Gamecube -> Wii at $200.
Of COURSE sales numbers will go up if prices go up. But are the number of gaming customers up? Are the number of software units sold going up? The answer is no. They are dropping down. And if the Xbox 360 and the new handhelds are any indication, it is not because of the 'transition'. It is because the market is...
1) Scared by the higher prices and/or waiting for them to drop (PS2 sales went up due to a price decrease. GBA is still outselling both the DS and PSP.)
2) The number of active gamers is decreasing due to getting bored (as opposed to growing leaps and bounds as has happened).
Compare the sales numbers of the US to Japan and Europe and you'll find that US is no longer as 'big' as it used to be. 2004 was the game industry's biggest year. Since then, its been in free fall.
strangely enough, most people will stick with their current consoles for months and years* more.
Exactly. I didn't buy my PS2 until it had already been out for a couple years. I bought a GameCube only a few weeks ago. If I do get a PS3 it won't be until sometime after Final Fantasy XIII is out, which won't be for more than a year. I want to get a Wii, but I'll wait for at least a year. And I have no intention of getting a 360 ever...
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Heaven forbid we put some money in the bank, pay bills, take care of other things first. Although I havent bought a game in 2yrs, since I now just play Open Source/Free ones.
stop making crappy games and going ZOMG LOOK AT THE GRAPHICS gameplay waht is that story what is that? but look at how pretty it is.
In the past two years, I've bought WoW and approximately 10 other videogames. 2 of those games do not compete with WoW (DS titles which I play when travelling). The other eight are gathering dust. In the two years immediately prior to WoW, I probably bought or was bought ~25 games, and finished them all. Even at $15 a month WoW is probably saving me money because it sucks up 99.5% of the time I care to spend playing games.
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