Video Game Industry Sales Finally Take a Hit

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The video game industry has, up until now, maintained strong sales even though the economy is in the dumper. The official numbers for March show that overall sales in the industry are down and, aside from the Xbox 360, all the major consoles have sold fewer units compared to last year.

Overall sales were also down 2.7 percent from February's $1.47 billion, and each of the six hardware platforms NPD tracks--Sony's PlayStation 3, PS2 and PSP, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii and DS--had lower sales in March than in February. The PS3 and Wii led the drops, with 21.0 percent and 20.2 percent lower sales, respectively.
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I thought the PS3 was going up recently. I'm not surprised Wii is going down though. But there were so many sales before that going down now would be pretty much natural.
 
while im not a console gamer really, i dont think this should be much of a surprise because i havent heard of too many new Good titles coming out.
 
It's my fault. I've only bought 3 games in the past 4 and a half years. WoW, BC, and WOTLK.

With working 13 hours a day and goofing off with friends and family in between, and an occasional sleep, I don't have time for any games anymore. I guess that's why I like WoW (or any MMORPG for that matter). You log in, do something, log out.
 
Before, I've mentioned how increase in video game sales could possibly be explained by it's high ROI ($ per liesure time) and, because of the recession, people were flocking to video games.
There's a few possible explanations for this: no good titles were released, people are still "working" on their old game, or--this is my favorite--we're coming out of the recession so people are spending their money on other stuff (bars, clubs, shows, etc.)! =)
 
While revenues are down compared to last year... WTF... its still PROFIT for them...

While its not growing, it didn't shrink to nothing. If anything, gaming will be the thing that keeps a good chunk of people going while unemployed.
 
I'm kind of not feeling it's all doom and gloom for Nintendo. Even MS put a PR BS number spin on the Wii at how MS came out on top this month.

Reality is the Wii sold more then the XBOX360 and PS3 combined as did the DS. Heck the Wii even with the decline sold almost twice as much as the XBOX360.
 
It's just because all the games that have been out since Christmas have been crap.

Soon as Sims 3 is out. It'll change.
 
I don't know about you guys but since the holidays I've been stockpiling cheap recession priced games.

Games bought since Christmas:
Crysis:Warhead - $10
Unreal Tournament 3 - $13
Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway - $8
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2 - $49 (bought on release with a BB giftcard)

Other than DoW2 nothing I've really wanted has come out that I would pay full price for and I've still got plenty of discount priced games to play that I otherwise would not have bought. Plop on top of that the copious amounts of TF2, L4D, CoD4 and BF2 multiplayer that I am still getting my monies worth on and I just don't see myself buying another game for a while.
 
Frazier wrote in a note accompanying NPD's report. "First, Easter fell in March last year whereas it fell in April this year, and last March included the release of Super Small Bros.: Brawl, which went on to become the fourth best-selling game in 2008."
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So it could just be that and not a trend because of economy. Maybe March was slow because everybody was saving for a new DSi. Lets see how April did; I'd bet sales in April this year are better than last year, at least for hardware. Last week DS sales were 602,382 units just in America.
 
Uh, there hasnt been many good games out. Its the quarter after Christmas. This happens every year, and isnt a suprise.
 
Not many good games have came out in the last few months, so it's not very suprising.
 
It's a really stupid thing when they compare last year and this year's game sales. Different games came out and a different number of games came out so of course sales will not be the same each year. This means absolutely nothing.

Shit games like Wii Fit, ballance boards and many casual games sold by the millions and you're telling me the economy's affecting games? Clearly people have lots of money to spend on bad games that took no effort to make. (I'm not saying all games were bad, but many were recently and the level of quality did not compare to games in 2007 and 2008)

Let's fire half our game developers and close down some studios, maybe that'll help. :rolleyes: Don't even get me started on the fact that Nintendo made huge, HUGE profits on every Wii sold and all its full-priced games which are on par with 15-20-year-old games graphically and gameplay-wise. They'd better not complain about losing money cause they should have billions stashed up by now.
 
will be a big ps3 year, also a big pc year, diablo 3, sc2, etc...

They are just getting nervous. I am waiting for atvi to go under 10$ a share, and I will hop in there. bet it will be 15+ by november.
 
I have not bought any console games this generation. The red ring done me in for xbox and now it is getting close to ps4. The Wii is not an issue for me. I dunno maybe its me? This console generation does not have the fire of the last.
 
Im thinking that part of this has to do with the fact that there haven't been any big video games coming out for the PC in the last 2-3 months.
 
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