Game Industry Suffers Fourth-Worst Sales Decline Ever

[jamesworkshop]

1. prices are too high (most Indie games are an exception)
2. Being a PC gamer for over 20 years i am not impressed with todays console ports and do not buy them
3. DLC - for a small amount you get new content for your favorite game so you have no need to bother with other games. But still - im a PC gamer and do not like DLCs (unless free), so i don't even buy games that use payable DLC. That lately narrows my selection quite a lot.
4. In my case - when i and my friends get a good game we play it. Lately that has been Bad Company 2 and we really have no urge to buy other games. It has its flaws and a bad smell of console, but at least we play it together at weekends.

then why the hell are you posting then, you are a PC ¨gamer¨!!! you just can´t see the whole picture, sonny

Don't worry about him he is simply going to miss out on Batman AA/Dead space/Dead rising 2*/SF4/RE5/Mirrors edge/Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands*/assassins creed/splinter cell conviction/Darkstalkers*/Blazblue*/[P]rototype

* not out yet but comming soon

 

[Icecoldcynic]

I entered this expecting some kind of hard hitting graph and instead am greeted by numbers? I am disappointed!

 

[Cody211282]

Well was anything released that was worth buying? Yea I couldn't think of anything ether.

 

[WorldCritic]

Too bad nothing good came out in April.

 

[Super Toast]

It's because bugger all was released in the way of good games this month.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

The one bright spot in all this was for the PlayStation 3, which was the only console to post growth for both the month of April and the year to date. On the opposite side of the coin, the Nintendo DS was far and away the biggest loser; it was the month's top-selling console but saw its sales tumble from more than one million units in April 2009 to 441,000 in April 2010.

I'm sure Sony has a smug grin on their faces over that, but they should be quickly reminded that beating your own horrible past sales isn't really something to be proud of. Any celebration they throw is basically a "Hooray We Stopped Sucking" party. Meanwhile it isn't shocking for the DS to be going down in sales seeing as it's towards the end of its life cycle with the predecessor having been announced.

 

[Gindil]

Que one guy coming in to say that piracy was the cause

Que the one guy coming in to lament the industry

Que the one guy coming in to say that it's sheer economics for the summer, not demand.

Que one guy coming in and saying that now Nintendo owns the world.

Que the end of this que.

 

[RicoADF]

I think this just means, at least as far as the hardware is concerned, is that it's less in demand, most likely because most people already own the systems they want. As far as software sales go, might have to do with a lack of good games to choose from. There's something here and there for the fan of this and that, but the more broad releases were pretty non existent. Of course, that part is mentioned in the article, kinda.

You hit the nail right on the head mate. If there were more new and original games then there'd likely be more sales.

 

[Antari]

Considering how many years they've had it so good, I really could care less if they have a few dry months. Either way those numbers aren't putting them out of business, so I don't care to hear them whine about it.

 

[Chunko]

I bet the industry just looks like it went down because of all of the MW2 sales last year.

 

[Audioave10]

Its just a slow month + bad DRM (I blame everything on DRM.

 

[veloper]

as in only 4th place of all time?
Not so terrible.

 

[Serioli]

Don't know if this is mirrored in many other countries (/sarcasm) but on 21st Apr 2010 it was reported that UK unemployment broke 2.5 million (highest since 1994). 21st Apr 2009, they were 2.1 million.

Combine this with cuts in hours and overtime, pay freezes, starting higher education/courses etc, which aren't reflected in employment figures, and you end up with a lot of people with far less disposable income.

We're supposed to be surprised that non-essential 'luxury' goods sales are down? Jinkeys Scoob, it must be those filthy pirates and re-sellers....