US Videogame Sales Have Biggest Drop In 9 Years

alphadogg writes "The recession appears to have finally caught up with the video game market. Sales of video game hardware and software were down by around one-third in June compared to the same month last year. After initially showing positive growth as the US slid into recession, the latest figures mark the fourth month of declines and the largest year-on-year decline in almost 9 years. 'The first half of the year has been tough largely due to comparisons against a stellar first half performance last year, but still, this level of decline is certainly going to cause some pain and reflection in the industry,' said Anita Frazier, a games analyst with NPD Group. She added, 'The size of the decline could also point to consumers deferring limited discretionary spending until a big event (must-have new title, hardware price cut) compels them to spend.' The entire video game market in the US was worth $1.2 billion in June, down 31 percent from the same period last year, according to NPD Group."

Comments

Re:chat

[arb phd slp]

A logged in account and everything. I'll be sure to enemy it in case it comes up again while I have mod points.

Re:No good games

[thedonger]

Correct. I cringe when I think about the average couch potato sitting in front of cable news drooling as they are lobotomized by sensational headlines, and then during the commercial break for Cheetos they absently stand up, go to the cupboard, get out a bag of Cheetos, and sit back down in time for the next deluge, totally unaware of the tasty, orange-coated snacks they are shoveling into their mouths.

To be fair, I think such people are really just uninformed and under-educated, and have been raised to believe what comes out of the shiny, moving-picture box controllable with the battery-powered magic wand. OK, that wasn't very fair. Guess I'm still bitter because my parents wouldn't let me join the circus when I was 8.