Gamers Forced To Be Choosy This Christmas

[Andy Chalk]

Gamers Forced To Be Choosy This Christmas

Signal Hill [http://signalhill.com] analyst Todd Greenwald says the rough economic situation is going to drive consumers toward established, proven franchises rather than the unknown quantities of new IPs this Christmas.

Greenwald said the tight cash situation facing parents and gamers will discourage them from taking risks on games they're not familiar with, suggesting that while Saints Row 2 [http://www.activision.com].

"We don't subscribe to the notion that the videogame industry is completely recession-proof," Greenwald said in his latest investor note. "Rather, we believe that both gamers and parents alike will have a tougher time this holiday buying every game they want. As a result, we believe that overall industry sales may be negatively impacted but that strong, triple-A titles should still sell well and drive growth for those publishers that have the right line-ups."

"We believe this bodes well for games like Guitar Hero 4, Call of Duty 5, Wrath of the Lich King, Spiderman: Web of Shadows and James Bond: Quantum of Solace," he continued. "On the other hand, this may be a risk for titles from EA and from THQ."

"If gamers are forced to be more selective, we believe they will take fewer risks with their cash and will only be drawn to highly-rated, proven IP with strong buzz and compelling new features," he continued. "At the same time, we believe they will be prone to passing on new, unknown titles, as well as annual iterations of sports or licensed games that have few new features or innovation."




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[ThaBenMan]

Well, it's unfortunate for the new IP's, but it makes sense. But people shouldn't just dismiss games because they're not part of an established franchise - they should do a little research. I know that I'm definitely getting Dead Space, and Mirror's Edge sounds interesting. And I'm also getting Fallout 3, but not just because it's "Fallout" - I looked into it and made a decision on what I thought of previews.

 

[stompy]

You might want to qualify the statement and say it will be tough for Americans.

Dingo, the US economy is linked to the global share market, and if they get hit hard, we do too. Australia is actually going to get hard by this Wall Street Crash; we're not exempt.

As for the article, it does seem to be a reasonable conclusion. Though, I will have a look at the reviews for the game before buying, but I never buy more that 3 games anyways.

 

[NeedAUserName]

As long as I get Resistance 2, and COD 5, I couldn't care less about most other games.

 

[shadow_pirate22]

All I care about is Konami, and they have TWO castlevania games coming out within a month of each other (Way to multitask, guys!). Sure, one of them is a fighter, and will probably amount to another button masher like Soul Calibur 1-4, but at least I can do the Alucard vs. Death battle and play as the other side this time! *glee*

 

[Bored Tomatoe]

I need Dead space, fable and fallout, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Uncompetative]

I'll be getting Far Cry 2 and Mirror's Edge as soon as they are released.

One of the benefits of being an Atheist is not having to wait until Christmas...

 

[Dapper Ninja]

One of the benefits of being an Atheist is not having to wait until Christmas...

I wasn't aware that there is a law that states that Christians cannot purchase anything at any time other than Christmas.

 

[BleachedBlind]

Actually, I'm much the opposite of this statement. Sure, there are a couple of established series titles I'm interested in, but the games I'm most excited about are the new IP titles like Mirror's Edge and Dead Space.

Also, I will most definitely not buy CoD5. Anybody else notice how extremely similar the CoD4 and CoD5 box arts are?
Call of Duty 4 [http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=65504]
Call of Duty 5 [http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=71812]

 

[ThaBenMan]

This would be more of an issue if there were good games on the horizon, but it's just crap after crap right now. Not hard to be choosy when your choices are limited to only one good sounding title in a hundred anyways.

Seriously? Dead Space, Fallout 3, Mirror's Edge, Left 4 Dead, Fable 2 - none of those look any good to you?

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Yes, but it remains to be seen if the American crash will be quite bad enough to actively trigger a global depression. The economic state is different than it was 70 years ago, and it is unlikely to actively cripple the global economy to the same degree.

Seeing as Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Iceland, Spain, Italy, and Japan are all having plunging stock prices (and some bank failures) because of this I wouldn't bet the farm (literally, in particular) on that. Australia and Canada aren't getting hit as hard yet, but with our export markets suffering we'll likely suffer too when they're too broke to pay for our stuff.

-- Steve

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

I call bulls***. Spending patterns in response to financial crisis scenarios have always been strong in the entertainment sector. People stop buying big stuff that costs too much and start spending cash on tiny things to feel less frivolous. And given the unemployment rate and tough future, people are going to be very interested in engaging entertainment.

And people are going to ditch the well known series this year. They're either going to buy the games they've always meant to buy and get at bargain, Call of Duty 4 for example, or pick up games that take a long time to beat, original IP be damned.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

You might want to qualify the statement and say it will be tough for Americans.

If America sneezes, the rest of the world gets a cold.

We're gonna sneeze soon. Don't worry though, viruses take a while to infect.

 

[stompy]

Yes, but it remains to be seen if the American crash will be quite bad enough to actively trigger a global depression. The economic state is different than it was 70 years ago, and it is unlikely to actively cripple the global economy to the same degree.

It's not just global recession that's hitting us, but our own internal credit crunch as well. You know, our dollar is at $US00.66? We also have a debt ratio of 165%, compared to the 64% at the start of the Great Depression. Our economy, while not as bad as the US's, is definitely going to face a crunch.

Also, it seems that, this time around, that our economic downturn is hitting the households (because of the excessive debt taken out by Australians), meaning it'll hit the retail sector hard. When a household needs to save money, they stop spending on non-necessities, and what better to stop spending on then a $110 product that may last 6-8 hours?

Edit: Damn, beaten to the point by Anton and Arab... and written better too.