Once again the NPD numbers look
pretty grim. Total game industry sales dropped 25 percent to $1.1 billion, as total software across consoles, portable and PC fell 26 percent to $585.1 million, while hardware sales plunged 35 percent to $323.5 million. This makes the 4th month in a row where sales have dropped more than 20% over the previous year... which, overall was down 8%. And that was the third year in a row of declining sales for video games... that is, for console games, primarily.
Nobody I talk to, and I've been talking to a lot of CEOs lately across the gaming industry, seems to be all that thrilled with the advent of a new console generation. Oh sure, they are all hoping for it to be a great success and arrive soon, but I don't think anybody believes that this console generation is going to beat the last one in sales.
Which has long-term implications for where big publishers should be investing...
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What would you say those long-term implications are? Digital distribution, acquiring small game companies and their IPs, more cloud-based service, perhaps a yet more movement away from consoles as a gaming product towards the console as a home entertainment hub?
ReplyDeleteAre those the kind of implications you'd forecast?