Recession Finally Smacks Gaming Industry
The latest numbers from research group NPD report that U.S. sales of video games actually fell 17-percent in the month of April compared to April 2008.
The latest numbers from research group NPD report that U.S. sales of video games actually fell 17 percent in the month of April compared to April 2008, dropping down to $1.03 billion USD in revenue compared to the $1.24 billion received this time last year. This is the second month in a row that the industry has seen a continued drop, with March sales racking in only $1.43 billion in revenue, a 30-percent drop compared to March 2008 figures. If anything, the recent downward spiral indicates that the gaming industry, thought to be immune during recent economical issues, is not quite as impervious as originally speculated.
According to the firm, hardware sales plunged 8 percent to $391.6 million during April, however software sales took the biggest hit, dropping a whopping 23-percent to $510.7 million. The Nintendo Wii was actually the top selling console for the month, but still managed to show a huge drop in sales this year, taking more than a 50 percent hit, down to 340,000 units. Microsoft's Xbox 360 came in second with 175,000 units sold, dropping only 7 percent compared to April 2008. Surprisingly enough, Sony's PlayStation 2 came in third due to a price cut down to $99.99; Sony's PlayStation 3 came in fourth.
In a press release distributed yesterday, Nintendo's outlook didn't appear quite so bleak. The NPD Group said that Nintendo sold more than 827,000 Nintendo DSi units in April alone, and an additional 251,000 Nintendo DS Lite units, making a combined total of 1.04 million DS units sold in April alone, and more than 30 million for the entire DS line in the United States. “Nintendo systems and software represented 56 percent of the industry total shares in April, indicating continued strong consumer preference for quality and value,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Looking ahead, we are excited to introduce active-play games like Punch-Out!! and Wii Sports Resort into the market.” Nintendo claimed four titles in April's Top 10, including Wii Fit, Pokemon Platinum, Mario Kart, and Wii Play.
Microsoft also seemed quite positive despite the sudden drop in sales. NPD results show that Xbox 360 numbers were actually up 28 percent in the first four months of 2009, when compared to the same timeframe in 2008, making it the fastest-growing console in the USA so far this year. Microsoft recognized the "dip" in sales, and also attributed last year's sales to the release of Grand Theft Auto 4. Staying positive, Microsoft said that four Xbox 360 games claimed their places in April's Top 10 list including The Godfather II, Resident Evil 5, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, and Guitar Hero: Metallica.
As both Nintendo and Microsoft have indicated, consumer spending may be low, but they're still willing to shell out the big bucks for their favorite games and consoles. "While the continued difficult economic environment is a factor to consider, our monthly consumer spending indicator study still shows that video games is the category that consumers tell us they're least likely to cut their spending on in coming months," NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in a statement.
Frazier also said that despite April 2009's lackluster performance, it was still the second-best April the industry has seen to date. Unit sales across the board--from the Wii to the PlayStation Portable--were down just 6 percent. The remaining revenue decline stemmed from the result of reduced "average selling prices."
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it seems to me that there haven't been that many great games being released right now. I would say that would contribute to lower sales figures.
I'm sure it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the lack of quality games on the market.
When Blizzard finally releases Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3. IMO, PC sales should rise.
I don't see how sales will pick up, there's no good games out. All the games that have come out this April were mediocre at best.
On the whole things like games usually do pretty well in a recession since its cheaper to buy a game a play at home rather than go out. Hardware sales can drop as people don't want to spend as much on graphics cards and the games that do come out could reflect the slower growth in consumer graphics hardware advancement but actual software sales shouldn't be affected too bad. Slight rise in piracy maybe but not a big deal imo.
The fact that sales are down from April last year is nothing when combined with the fact that its the second best year of all time. As others have mentioned, its probably due to a lack of any newly released blockbuster or even semi-blockbuster games.
Well there is Fallout 3. But Im having a hard time thinking of another Im looking forward too.
Recession my ass. Just more n00bs know how to download and play the cracked versions now.
This article is interesting, but I don't think completley accurate. Console sales are likely to drop, seeing as more people have them already...Also, the amount and type of games released this April is nowhere compared to last year's April, so its natural to assume that sales will be down...
90% of the games I've bought since the recession began have been used. Why pay for new when I can get the same thing used for less?
I thought it was because of the pirates?
5 reasons to last years sales figures...
1) Grand Theft Auto 4 came out April 29th
2) Gran Turismo 5 Prologue came out April 15th
3) Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out the month before
4) Mario Kart Wii came out April 27th
5) Assassin's Creed for pc came out April 8th
I will bet those 5 games had a decent impact on last year's sales figures.
All we had this year for april was "The Godfather II" and wellll...nothing?
Where the hell is Diablo 3 ???
There are tons of people waiting years to buy it!
It's all about game releases and game quality. Like most folks above stated. Nothing good has been released, so why should sales do anything BUT go down? This isn't necessarily a recession issue. It's a lack of creativity issue.
Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 are going to be massive... Everyone I know in person 'RL' (that games on PC) is buying both of those games, and we all pirate.
Blizzard is to cash in once again!
figures are skewed as these figures dont take into account resale on games (both console and pc games). the recession fears are stupid really sure things will get rough , some "fat" will get cut perhaps this may means we'll only see 100+ games per console in the futrture instead of 300+ .. but well teh 200 optehr pecentage is really jsut a lot of mediocre to crappy gmes any way .
also keep in mind , i've gone to buying used games myself , also i currently been playign mroe games on console (used) than pc lately because all teh companoes are relaly holdign back on pc reelases or theya re bundling thier pc games with securom. so i just ahvent seen any thign compelling to buy on pc this year. alst pc games i got were on x-mas (left 4 dead (steam version), mass effect (steam version) , fall out 3 (steam version) , tomb raider underworld (reatail , and thank god edios has NO stupid drm scheme )
could this in any way be due to the fact that every body just has all the "next-gen" that they need? a year on more ppl would have bought all the wiis/ps3s/xboxes that they wanted. could it just mean that "next-gen" has become "current-gen"? i mean its not like the "new" overpriced DSi did badly? this may at least be some of the reason, i know the recession would be somewhat to blame.
It's not a car, it's not a TV, it's not even a computer, it's a game. Just like movies. Why did movies get a good month? Because they had Xmen, Star trek and another one I don't remember. If the movies are bad, you can't compare it to last years releases, because why would anyone go to a movie they don't want to see.
Same goes for games. If a game is bad, why would anyone buy it. The games have gone from being good to being really really bad. We are stuck with games that don't last a day, we've got games that are too easy, too many continues and no game over, too boring, too old that the graphics would look great 10 years ago.
I'm sorry, but games aren't improving at all. I don't buy games, I have my MMO and I'll keep playing that, as the other things on the market are junk.
I don't participially like Blizzards marketing strategy, others love the cashcow model, but I prefer more releases, but that's their strat and it's working for them. I'm looking out to Diablo 3 and well I'll have a look at SC2 too I guess, but I'm not so much into strategy games anyway.
I don't expect it to recover soon, not until we see a good game again. Comparing to other years only works when you expect 10 good games to release and you had 10 good releases the year before.
The only reason why their sales were as good as they were this year was due to Hannah Montana holding them up. They should be grateful for what they got IMO. :3
Sales have slumped because the lack new quality titles. A good game immerses the player into that world. Few games released in the last quarter have been able to do that well. Not to say that all games released sucked in the last quarter, but rather none are worth the 50-60 dollar price tag. Face it, movie tie-in games released at 60 dollars is a joke. Most are uninspired with broken gameplay. Wolverine, though uninspired, has some descent gameplay, thanks to Raven, but still isn't worth the new game price. What reason does anyone have to shell out 60 on a game or 200-500 on a new console.
I thought it was because of the pirates?
They can't seem to make up their mind on who to blame.
"finally"? Please, it smacked the industry 6 months ago. 6 months ago, 22 out of 30 people at the company I was working for were laid off due to EA's cutbacks on its casual games sector. Nothing is recession proof, save for porn.
Maybe because there were no good games released...
Nothing is recession proof, save for porn.
Maybe they should start making more porn games? We could stand one more Leisure Suit Larry adventure in high-definition. Screw Crysis having all the fun on being graphically challenging to computers. How cool would it be to start seeing benchmarking done on Leisure Suit Larry – From Here to Boobternity. “...We will be testing the new HD 4770 in 4x Crossfire using the Bunny Ranch level...”
this is old news though. The industry had a slow down once before, followed by a speed up and in April 2008 was GTA IV. So a slow down is only because of that. TOMS, this is old news, it was on Gamespot.com/news like 2 or 3 weeks ago!