Analysts Foresee Another Banner Year For Videogame Industry

Analysts observing the videogame industry forsee 2008 being another blockbuster year in sales. Sales during the month of February were considerably up, according to the NPD group. Early in the year is historically a very slow time in the game sales calendar, making the 34% jump for the month highly significant. Grand Theft Auto IV is likely to be an engine for sales throughout the year: "The game, which will be available on the Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3, is expected to boost sales of both consoles. Pre-orders have been better than expected, according to its publisher, Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan, expects the game to sell about 9 million units during the company's fiscal year, which ends in October. Roughly 6 million of this, he added, will be to Xbox 360 owners."

Comments

Buried lead: PS2 outselling PS3, still.

[LostCluster]

From the article:
Going strong since its launch in 2000, Sony's PlayStation 2 continued to outpace its successor. The PS2 sold 351,800 units compared with 280,800 for the PS3.

Somehow, this indicates that the HDTV conversion isn't going according to plan.

Re:Buried lead: PS2 outselling PS3, still.

[AKAImBatman]

Then there are some significant PS3 exclusives coming out for holiday season. Microsoft has no obvious counter at this point.

I'm not a fan of either the 360 or the PS3, but I feel it's worth noting that the XBox has Gears of War 2 in the pipeline, and has exclusive downloadable episodes announced for GTA4. Those may or may not be enough to counter Sony's push, but they do exist and do provide an answering salvo to some degree.

There's also the E3 to be concerned about. While Nintendo is outright saying that they're holding their cards close, the other competitors haven't said anything either way. I'm fairly certain that Sony has already played their cards and are in it for the long haul, but the possibility exists that Microsoft could produce a big announcement at the show. Again, I'm not sure of the likelihood of Microsoft coming up with something big enough to stop Sony in their tracks, but the possibility definitely exists there.

Re:Buried lead: PS2 outselling PS3, still.

[Namarrgon]

If the gap continues to widen, and with Blu-ray ruling the hi def world there is no reason to doubt it will

Ah, you see there is the fallacy. Xbox 360 is not an HD-DVD player, it's a games player. Many PS3 owners fail to appreciate this distinction, but almost every single person who bought a 360 did so for the games, not for the movies.

Counter exclusives; there's GTS IV's episodic content, Too Human, Gears 2, Ninja Gaiden 2, Halo Wars (& Halo: Chronicles?), Fable 2... but perhaps they're not "obvious" to you.

And as for your list of "issues" (color resolution? You're kidding, right?), the only significant issue to the games market is the failure rate, which is no longer a problem for new sales. The rest only seem to matter to the occasional troll like yourself.

Re:Buried lead: PS2 outselling PS3, still.

[Cornflake917]

As a current XBox 360 owner....

the heat issue Not issue for me. I can play all day and not have problems.

the failure rate issue It's not a problem for potential buyers anymore, the new version's failure rate is significantly decreased. If the off chance it does fail, that's what warranties are for.

the lower color resolution issue Same game comparisons show very similar picture quality between XBox 360 and PS3.

the lower processing power issue Same game comparisons show very similar picture quality between XBox 360 and PS3. By the way, having less processing power (than what? a PS3?) is an issue? Give me a break. I hope you don't have Wii.

the bungee defection issue Even if bungee didn't defect, we wouldn't be seeing another Halo for at least 3 years anyways. Not really a problem for this year.

the older technology issue Stupid argument, not completely true, same game comparisons show very similar picture quality between XBox 360 and PS3.

the lack of hd player issue First people say 360 sales are hurting because lack of HD adoption. Now they're sales are hurting because not enough HD support? Which is it?

division attrition issue, the continuing losses issue MS was expecting to start with losses. They said they expect to turn a profit this year. So these aren't issues yet.

the morale issue Wtf are you talking about?

In summary, you are making up issues that the 360 doesn't have, and you are obviously a PS3 fanboy. I think the 360 is a great console, and I think the PS3 and Wii are great consoles as well. I don't see what the point of the obvious attempt at trash talking the 360 (or any console). I want all three companies to be in stiff competition so they can keep churning out some great games.

Re:Buried lead: PS2 outselling PS3, still.

[Namarrgon]

You're not a gfx programmer yourself, are you? Otherwise you'd be linking to nVidia specifications, not consumer reviews. The relevent OpenGL extension is GL_ARB_color_buffer_float, which was indeed implemented for G70-class hardware as of R75 drivers (actually, GL_NV_float_buffer.txt was implemented even earlier).

Yes, you can use this for offscreen framebuffer objects and pbuffers, which is all you need when float texture blending for HDR rendering, but this is then tone-mapped to the 32bit displayable framebuffer for output. It's still not possible to get more than 8bit RGB actually out of the chip. Apart from SGI (who patented float rasterisation), I've only heard of an old Matrox card claiming to do real 10bit integer RGBA output (under quite specific conditions, apparently). Even nVidia's current high-end Quadros can't do it (well, unless you count 10bit 4:2:2 YUV from the SDI connector on some models). I'd welcome any comments showing real evidence to the contrary (preferably from someone who hasn't been repeatedly modded down as a troll), but I've never seen it done.

I can see it easily with my own eyes

As I said earlier, the "washed out blacks" you say you're seeing is poor colour mapping, not lack of deep colour.

The PS3 can decode TrueHD into PCM

There it is right there. Yes, the PS3 player supports TrueHD, but it does notpass it over the HDMI link - it gets decoded to good ol' HDMI 1.0-standard multichannel PCM first. Read the rest of the article - a Sony rep has confirmed this. And AFAIK the PS3 still does not yet support DTS-HD; it only passes through the DTS component. Incidentally, I found it ironic that you're accusing me of trolling :-)

You don't have to convince me that the PS3 is good hardware. It certainly has the edge in CPU power, and the Blu-Ray player is a valuable addition (though it's also the primary reason Sony released late and expensive, throwing away their lead from the PS2). Its graphics are debatable though, and most unbiased people consider PS3 and Xbox 360 GPU power to be roughly equivalent. More on topic, the PS3's HDMI port is more capable than the 360's (which can't even pass multichannel PCM) - but the HDMI 1.3 output is pure marketing, nothing more. Most TV sets (even those that accept deep colour) still can't actually display it, only use it for cleaner tweaking. Certainly no plasma or consumer LCD panel that I'm aware of is capable.

I hate to nitpick...

[Viceroy Potatohead]

..but: "forsee"? Shouldn't the title be "foresee"? Apologies for spelling Nazism, usually, I don't care about that sort of thing, but it's the title, for God's sake, put in a little effort...

Re:I hate to nitpick...

[causality]

By expecting something more than piss-poor quality, you have harmed the Sacred Cow (tm). You wil now be modded into oblivion, despite the fact that you are absolutely right. I'm not sure if they will use "Offtopic" or "Flamebait". Maybe I should flip a coin, although I'm guessing the fact that you are commenting ABOUT THE ARTICLE won't stop them from using "Offtopic".

Mediocrity has become the norm, and the many people who don't understand that excellence is its own reward, or that doing something at all means you should make an effort to do it well shall vent their rage at you for pointing this out. Since they lack any real power or influence, and certainly can't use reason to support their viewpoint, they will mod you down! Mwa hahaha, that'll teach you.

I'll buy that...

[7Prime]

However, GTA4 won't do it alone. I'm not sure why the article hinges on GTA4s success. GTA is a huge franchise, I'm not going to argue that, but no GTA game has outsold the Halo or Smash Bros franchises (which produced the #1 and #2 best selling games of last generation). Halo 3 saw release last year to enormous success, and so far Smash has been exceeding sales expectations this year. Combine Smash Brawl with GTA4, Mario Kart Wii, MGS4, and the remote possibility of a 2008 Final Fantasy US release (unlikely, but possible), and you have a good solid framework for 2008 sales. 2007 saw many huge things though, so I'm not sure it's as cut and dry as the article suggests, but there's a good possibility. And I'm not even going to dig into the huge Nintendo DS sales that simply defy all conventional explanation.

Re:I'll buy that...

[rsmith-mac]

I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from, but they don't jive with what VGChartz has. The top series from the last generation:

- Grand Theft Auto: 41.16m units (SA: 15.36, VC: 14.20, GTA3:11.60)

- Gran Turismo: 23.75m units(GT3:14.87, GT4:8.88)

- Halo: 14.88m units (H1: 6.43, H2: 8.45)

- Super Smash Bros Melee: 7.08mil

And the list goes on and on and on. GTA was huge, followed by Gran Turismo, and then finally you get Halo. A lot of this has to do with the PS2 being the top selling console of the generation, but when a GTA game was the biggest selling game of a whole generation and the series by far the biggest of the generation, it's pretty rational to expect a ton of sales based on the name alone.

Re:mgs4 and brawl must also be an engine

[junner518]

I believe Brawl will be one of the best games of the year. Nintendo has consistently had blowout sales on its super smash bros. franchise, and Brawl is definitely the best yet. It's way better than melee(no wavedashing, etc.) and brings a gameplay more similar to the first one. The characters are well balanced, but lend themselves to certain styles of playing. The graphics, although not what an Xbox 360 or PS3 fan would consider good, are still impressive. It is definitely evident that nintendo took some time to make this one perfect, even if it meant months of delays. And as far as I can tell, its pretty much everything I hoped for and more.

Could be

[7Prime]

Could be... or it could mean the 360 is just hacking into Sony's former mindshare. I think it's probably a combination of both, actually. The continued success of the Wii is probably the #1 indication that HDTV adoption (or should I say, SDTV abandonment) isn't going as planned.

Re:Could be

[Anonymous Coward]

Please.

HDTV loses out on:
1. Cost.
2. Standard definition picture quality.
3. Cost of content.
4. Amount of content.
5. Cost of accessories.
6. The fact that I already own an SDTV.

Re:Could be

[RockModeNick]

It's not a matter of if it's better(It is, I've examined them), it's a matter if its enough for most people to care. I personally don't really care much, I can see the difference, and the margin of difference in price is simply not worth the cost to replace the units. I think many, like me, will not buy an HDTV until their current set becomes useless.

Re:Could be

[loganrapp]

SDTV Loses Out On: 1) Sucking.

Re:Could be

[twistedsymphony]

1. Cost.

On a size for size comparison, meaning 32" SD vs 32" HD HDTVs really arn't any more expensive than good quality SDTVs were about 5-10 years ago, it's just that SDTV prices have dropped to help get them off the shelves and most people look at much larger screens when looking at HDTV.

2. Standard definition picture quality.

That all depends on if you know what you're doing/what you're buying. While I'll conceed that joe consumer doesn't really understand the technology if you buy an HDTV with a Faroudja DCDi processor, or a stand alone up converter, (Oppo also makes DVD players with this processor) then your SDTV content will never have looked better. Most people don't factor that in when looking for a TV though.

3. Cost of content.

That all depends on what kind of content you're viewing. All current generation games cost exactly the same whether you view them in SD or HD, and even the Wii can benifit from HDTV since it supports progressive scan and widescreen. Similarly most DVD content is also progressive scan and widescreen and with a good scaler like the aforementioned Faroudja in either your player or your TV will create a better picture than your SDTV tube is capable of. While the prices of Blu-Ray movies is a bit more than DVDs, you can usually find them for the same price if you shop around, it also doesn't usually cost any more to rent one over the other, at least not at any of the places I've seen.

4. Amount of content.

with the exception of the Wii all new video game content is HD, and as stated before with the right processor you'll get a better picture for SD broadcasts, DVDs, and other SD content. There are thousands of DVDs and last generation games that suppored EDTV (progressive scan/widescreen) that were not able to reach their full graphical potential on SD sets but CAN be fully realized on an HDTV. Becides most new movies and popular older movies are arriving on Blu-Ray and available through numerous download on-demand services, not to mention most of the popular TV stations (NBC, ABC, CBS, etc.) as well as most of the premium stations (HBO Stars, Cinemax, etc.) are broadcasting in HD now too, and it's only getting better as time goes on.

5. Cost of accessories.

like what exactly? the rental fee for a DVR from my cable provider is the same if it's SD or HD, as far as cables go the difference between RCA interconnects and HDMI is inconsequential as long as you're comparing similar quality products and not cheapo RCAs to rip-off Monster HDMIs. Go hit up monoprice if you don't believe me

6. The fact that I already own an SDTV.

You got me there, but I've yet to find any new technology that I was able to own without buying it.

Ultimately, not everyone is you, and not everyone has the same needs as you. I'm sure there are quite a few people who don't need or want an HDTV or HD content, but I know I personally don't watch TV but instead play video games, and I have over 400 DVD movies in my collection all supporting progressive scan and widescreen. My display is a projector in a home theater room and when I made the jump from an ED projector to an HD projector the difference was night and day... the HD projector I bought didn't cost any more than the ED projector when I bought it 3 years before, all of my old content looked far and wide better (because I specifically bought a projector that uses a Faroudja DCDi) and the Xbox 360 and Wii games that I had been playing already looked much better. I don't have a Blu-Ray player, but I do rent HD movies through the Xbox Live marketplace... Of course I also place a high value on the fidelity of my picture and sound.

Economic Conditions

[NuclearError]

It's interesting how high sales are despite a stalled economy. Maybe it's cheaper to sit at home and play video games instead of going out, given the price of gas.

Re:Economic Conditions

[7Prime]

interesting point. Watch as movie theater revenues plummit and game sales sky rocket. Average movie length: 2 hours. Average game length: 30-50 hours. Which is the more ecconomical entertainment medium? Games, by a long shot. Less trips to Blockbuster or the Cinemaplex means less money wasted on gas.

Re:no spore?

[Evangelion]

Why? Do you plan on mangling your fingers and eyes out of boredom?

Re:mgs4 and brawl must also be an engine

[wicka]

An engine, I believe, is a game that further drives sales. I don't think there is any way to drive Wii sales higher, considering they are selling them as fast as they can make them.

I don't want to be viewed as a fanboy, it's just that unless Nintendo invests in another factory (which they won't), their sales really have nowhere to go but down.

Re:Blood sports

[RichardX]

Oh please.
I'm a grade-A long-haired sandal-wearing granola-eating pacifist hippy, and even I don't think you have a leg to stand on here.
GTA is not presently, nor ever has been marketed at children. The video you linked to was made and uploaded by Joe Random and has nothing official whatsoever to do with GTA or Lego. I suspect that the uploader of that video is more likely to be sued than endorsed by the respective owners of the properties involved.

What happened to hand eye coordination? As far as I can see it's alive and well and making record profits on the Wii.

What happened to puzzle games? Not sure.. perhaps they've undergone something of a record resurgence of late, with web based 'casual games' for the PC, various offerings on Xbox Live, and the usual 'classic game' compilations for all major consoles, not to mention the DS and titles like Puzzle Quest..

As for dribbling and passing.. I'm not much of one for sports games myself, but unless basketball and football have changed very dramatically since last I checked then I'm pretty sure those are still available in whatever the latest seasonal update to the big sports franchises is (is the FIFA series even still going?). In fact, I hear there's also some kind of crazy high tech virtual reality system where you can go to a store, buy a REAL ball, and pass or dribble it outside with your friends - and it doesn't even need a network connection!

When did we turn our minds off to videogame butchery? You're a bit late getting on this bandwagon my friend. Apparently you totally missed Mortal Kombat, Bloodstorm, Robocop*, Hitman, Carmageddon, all of the previous GTA games, and a million other titles which temporarily escape my mind.

There's a simple solution to this - if you don't like the games, don't play them. And if you're letting underage kids play games like GTA then you're downright irresponsible.

I don't mean to sound all smug and glib about this, even though I know I probably do sound that way. Personally I have a similar issue with movies - I find the torture-porn genre which has become so popular of late (Saw, Hostel, Captivity, etc) to be utterly repulsive on just about every possible level. I can't understand for the life of me why anyone would want to watch movies like that, let alone make them.. but at the same time I wouldn't try and take away other people's right to watch that kind of thing if that's what they're into, so long as they're mentally capable of dealing with it in a mature way (i.e. they're an adult, for one thing)

*Yes, the Robocop game (from the 8/16 bit days) caused a minor storm, in the UK at least. "The movie is 18-rated! How dare you let children play this!", the daily mail readers screamed...