February Game Sales Flop

Some financial news from the gaming industry today; NPD Analysts predict that game sales for February will be much lower than hoped-for, down eleven percent from last year. Take-Two Interactive, the publisher for studios Rockstar and Firaxis, posted a loss of $29.1 Million in their first quarter, which ended at the end of January. Not everything was doom and gloom. Newly linked Bioware/Pandemic did great in 2005, with more than 28 million games sold. From that 1up piece: "Neither company has laid out much of their plans for the next-generation consoles, though BioWare's brief showing of their planned Xbox 360 trilogy Mass Effect suggests the companies are poised to be just as ambitious on the coming consoles as ever before. "

Next Gen Consoles

[mexter2005]

The fact that we have two different next-gen consoles coming down the pipeline can't possibly be helping game sales. That, and the quality of the games.

The more relevant question is...

[__aaclcg7560]

Are there any new games out there worth buying when they're not in the bargin bin already?

Re:Next Gen Consoles

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the line up that's gonna be coming out in March:

Oblivion
Metroid Prime DS
Brain Age
New Tetris

It's no wonder that February wasn't too hot for game sales.

Re:MMO effect?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree about MMORPGs. Every friend I have who plays WoW or EQ or one of the others has completely stopped buying any new games where they used to buy pc games at least every month or two even if just for the sake of buying something.

The fact that Geometry Wars is the most talked about game on the 360 should be a pretty good idication of the sorry state of games for the system. And there doesn't seem to be much on the horizon - at least nothing that isn't going to be on the pc too.

The PS2 seems to be still doing pretty well. SotC, RE4, Burnout, DQVII are all major titles.

GameCube had a fantastic holiday season but has dropped off a lot in the past month. People seem to be waiting for the next Zelda and not buying anything else.

The pc game market was already in a pretty steady decline. I don't think it will ever really go away but I think MMORPGs are going to suck much of the viability out of the pc segement of the market for a lot of big pc game developers leaving the market to mostly little pc game developers doing more low budget titles with almost all of the big budget titles being done on consoles.

New Monthly Headlines...

[rts008]

I guess we might as well get used to seeing this from now on:
every month= game sales down, **AA crying that movie profits are down and music sales (CD's) are down, none of them can get a clue I guess, a lot of are tired of DRM, high prices, and slipping quality and us sheep are looking for better pastures.

What's coming? (Maybe an Ask Slashdot...)

[wandazulu]

As a GC owner, I'm looking forward to Zelda Twilight Princess, but other than that, I can't think of any other game I'm supposed to be looking forward to or is making any kind of movement on the Excite-o-Meter. DNF? I gave up looking forward to that years and *years* ago. Shenmue 3 (yes, I played and loved 1 & 2)? Who knows if that will ever see the light of day.

The malaise stretches across the board: Nobody's talking about a new GTA game (GTA: Akron maybe?), no Dooms or Quakes or Half Lifes, or even Katamari Damarcys; no AAA titles to make me even inquisitive.

Comments on /. have been along the same way; lots of retro talk, but no buzz (planted or not) about anything. Anything! We're in a stasis; the 360 is here but there's nothing exciting coming down the pipe, the PS3 has been delayed, taking whatever launch titles we were hoping for with it, and the Revolution...well, that thing is so nebulous I can't even form an opinion of it (controller notwithstanding).

In short, you (the game industry) got nothin', and now we all know it.

Re:MMO effect?

[MISplice]

I know I am one of those players.. and a lot of my friends are. Most articles I have read have said that is one of the appeals of WoW is that it is relatively easy to level by yourself or in a small group and appeals to the more casual gamers. I would say that the % of casual gamers is probably more like 20%.. I bought WoW in August and have not purchased another game since.

Re:What's coming? (Maybe an Ask Slashdot...)

[Retroneous]

You own a Gamecube (and a Gamecube only), of course you can't see what's coming.

There were hundreds of titles out just before Christmas, and nobody could have played every single thing that they liked the look of, surely?

The UK's February release schedule is just as bad, but it ALWAYS HAS BEEN. This isn't news for Chrissakes. Every year, the industry suffers a massive downturn in February. Christmas shopping covers Nov/Dec, then January sales cover January, then February has...well, a bunch of crappy Gameboy Advance compilation packs and sod all else. Then March perks up as everyone prepares for the Easter/Summer holidays...

I expect March to be slower...

[EvilCabbage]

Down here in Australia, we're two weeks away from the Xbox 360 launch (23rd March it hits shelves). The console itself is going to set us back AU$649.00 and games are an average of AU$120 each.

One hundred and twenty fucking dollars? Give me a break. I had a hard enough time justifying a game at $80 or $90, but to bust out a three figure pricetag is just ridiculous. I've got a "good" job, my wife and I have plenty of disposable income and we're both quite enthusiastic gamers but we've just been priced out of the market quite frankly.

If people with a few grand a month to basically throw away are being put off by the cost of this "next gen" crap, what's that going to do for the guy who will need to spend two weeks of his income just to pick up the console and a couple of games?

I really do hope the 360 launch flops down here, it sure as hell deserves to.

Re:My PC game purchases have declined

[snuf23]

Your right, it would have been much more fun to keep playing WoW. Like all that fun I was having with:

1. Running the same content over and over again in hopes of maybe getting an item that might drop
2. Waiting in a queue for an hour to even get on the server to play
3. Sitting around waiting for hours in game for a chance to play a PVP battleground for 5 minutes
4. Doing repetitive faction grinding quests over and over
5. Enabling, disabling, updating my UI addons for every little patch that Blizzard releases
6. Running through the exact same lower level content for the third or fourth time with an alt

I'm sure EQ2 has plenty of these issues at the high end and I'm sure I'll quit when I get annoyed at it. Right now there are tons of quests for both solo and groups, new zones and dungeons to explore, solid combat and a good player community.
Oh wait, I'm sorry SOE is the devil incarnate and Blizzard is capable of doing no wrong.

Re:March is another lame month.

[Khuffie]

You mean Sequel Crossing?

Just because a game is a sequel doesn't make it not good. Just because you don't care about that shit mean no one does. Get off your high horse, will ya? I'm quite looking forward to playing GRAW and Oblivion.

And forget GarageBand, give Elektroplankton a rent at least. Its quite fun.

I bought Black...

[payndz]

...but then I returned it because I got bored with it, having seen everything it had to offer in just three days. So I guess that doesn't technically count as a sale.