Was Lee Correct After All.

Sales of video Games are down and the reason that is being suggested for this is no original titles and too many part 2,3,4,5,6,..Lee did say this in 2010...Is he the Nostradamus of the video games forum...

Happens at the end of every generation, esp this one as it will be two years longer than most of the others.

Once people see the new Xbox and Playstation at E3, the new IP's and the new versions of games they love excitement will pick up again and sales will follow.

It has nothing to do with CoD or any other annual franchise, people will flock to the new consoles for MW4, BF4, Fifa ect imo.

Yep. He's like the Mayans just slightly more accurate :)

"Sales of video Games are down and the reason that is being suggested for this is no original titles"

I suppose nobody thought that the global economic recession might be a factor.

I predict this year will be a record breaker. Just look at the first couple of months and then we have the new consoles to look forward too. Last years games was very average game wise.

TBF, it's a pretty pointless thread. "Game sales are down". Can we at least have the source? Because I bet it only looks at console and PC sales. Totally neglecting phone sales, tablet sales, internet gaming etc. It's a bit like saying "reading is less popular than ever" on the basis on paperback sales being down. Utterly neglects the fact that every time you're on the internet, you're reading. Erm, about from when the wife is in bed, mind.

The NPD Analysis group made the claim that game sales are down 2% on last year. I can't read the link at work though so no idea if that includes tablet game etc sales or just console.

They made the same claim on the 12th Jan 2012 that game sales were down 2% in 2011. Can't see any info on game sales down by the same percentage in 2012.

Found this:

The UK's Entertainment Retailers' Association has released its final report for 2012, and video game sales in that country are down more than 17 percent. Total entertainment sales, including music and movie sales, are down by about 12 percent. The culprit seems to be physical sales, with video game shares of that category dropping from 73 percent to 65.4 percent, and physical sales overall dropping by about 5 percent.

ERA Director General Kim Bayley actually cited the drops as a success for physical media, in that "despite digital's seemingly inexorable growth, the CD, the DVD and the physical games disc show incredible resilience." Bayley added that despite the shrinking numbers, "physical formats still account for three quarters of the entertainment market."

On the digital side, sales crossed a record of £1 billion for the first time ever. Digital video game sales rose by 7.7 percent, just slightly less than the overall growth trend in digital. For now, however, digital growth isn't enough to keep the industry at large growing. The ERA says the lack of growth was largely due to a "dearth of attractive releases" last summer, and the organization hopes to "offer the public a much better release slate in 2013."

Still cannot be judged from this article either though.

NPD only records physical sales. I think until we start getting firm figures from Steam, GoG, Google, Apple, etc, then these kind of reports are becoming increasingly pointless.

So all the PS+ free games that people have been enjoying have not been taken into account.

EDIT i say free but we still paid a subscription to play them so technically buying/renting the game.

I supose we can always blame the murderous kids for the drop in sales... ;)

I'd be surprised if they weren't down in this financial climate, pointless waste of time.

Will try and find the link but i read software was down 17% year on year in November i think it was.

It's going to be very interesting to see how Sony and MS convince people to part with £400+ for the new Playstation or Xbox next Nov in this financial climate.

Yes, I've put that in my comment above Nessy.

On the news last night - said games sales ( physical copies )were down something like 25% up to christmas but download games up 5%.

That's where I saw the info.On the News. Sorry for not making that clear...Is the majority migrating to on-line only gaming?

Not really Neph, but lots of these 'IT'S THE END OF GAMING' news stories totally fail to appreciate that gaming isn't solely a PC and console pursuit. My nephew is staying at the mo and last night was playing Need For Speed on his iPad mini, Plants v Zombies on his phone and some Facebook games when he was on there.

CRIKEY, Chris...He's well connected.

Lol, i was not expecting to see this when i came on the forum today ;).

How are you neph? nice crimbo and new year.

My next prediction is going to be that cod is responsible for the uk having the highest teenage pregnancy rates in europe.

I dont think its rocket science to be honest --- people just have more options these days and even than a year ago .. as said above people are going for the ipad , phone games as well at the moment and these are also a lot cheaper . That bound to have an impact on the ps3 / x box disc ... theres only so many hours in the day.

I'm Good thanks Lee..Hope you are well..

actually we are in a massive baby boom at the mo but apparently its caused by 50 shades of grey and the olympics :) anyway im not surprised games have taken a little hit at the mo, there isnt much knocking around, gamestation taking a hit and the silly pricing thats going on isnt helping But im not pessimistic overall as long as they get it in their heads constantly churning out cut-and-paste sequels isnt the way to go.

No woolmer its cod, FACT ;).