Sign of the times? or sign of things to come...

VIDEO GAME-SALES
NPD: September video game sales drop 8 percent
NEW YORK (AP) -- In grim news for video game companies, market researcher NPD Group says U.S. retail sales of game hardware, software and accessories fell 8 percent in September to $1.2 billion.
The NPD Group said Thursday game hardware sales tumbled 19 percent to $383 million, as fewer people bought Wii and PlayStation 3 consoles.
Software sales were also down, even though Microsoft Corp.'s blockbuster "Halo: Reach" sold 3.3 million units.
Game accessories, meanwhile, saw an uptick, boosted by Sony Corp.'s new Move motion controller.

Business as usual.

It's getting about that time when everyone who wants one has one.
Until the price drops, then those that want one but couldn't afford it will pull the trigger.

Then they will announce the next generation system.


Of course, with DLC being so prevalant now, it might end the whole
'limited life cycle of game consoles' every 6-8 years. Opting for upgrades to the existing hardware instead.

That said, I'd expect sales to drop off once the market is saturated.

the recession, while technically over, still is kicking people's butts.

also, this is a sign of the new normal, the longer life cycle game console, and that is fine by me really, longer lifespans mean that developers get a better feel for their systems, so while hardware makers may sell less(and generally outside of nintendo, hardware is usually sold initially at a loss for the companies) more polished offerings, particularly from first party teams, will be the eventual upshot..so long as the recession doesn't put too much of a restriction on people's income, a lot of people who found work did so at lower pay than they had, that limits entertainment budgets.

finally, were there any big games this september(outside of halo reach)? i know October should have some big names with fable 3 and fallout new vegas, but i dotn recall getting much personally this month, that doesnt mean that much, but outside of halo, which was as gorilla-sih as ever, were there big hits?

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

It's not the Christmas shopping season yet. People are saving their pennies for what's coming for the holiday sales.

Also, I'm betting people are using services like GameFly more than before. Harder to justify spending full price on games these days. Do they count used sales, I wonder?

i loved blade kitten, even made a thread for it back when such things were allowed. ok, yeah i did forget a few, so in that case i re-shift the blame on the economy. technically out of recession, but such things hit in ripples, and a lot of us are still hurting.thanks for the names. i suspect on the hardware side, the implosion of the psp go didnt help matters, strongly suspect that the 3ds might take some time tog et momentum if it launches close to its Japanese price (near 300 bucks), nintendo rules handhelds, but that price may cause a slow adoption rate for a handheld.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I wouldn't be so sure we're out of the recession just yet. I've been hearing a number of economists say we're in a double dip recession. Initial jobless claims continue to rise. Economic indicators like factory orders for durable goods remain down. Reuters just released a US economic growth forecast that doesn't look good. So I expect that the poor economy is playing a role here.

I agree with others here. Just about everyone who wants one, has one.

Wii has been out for almost 4 years.
XBox 360 for almost 5 years.
PS3 for almost 4 years.

Time between the Gamecube and Wii, 5 years.
XBox and XBox 360, 4 years.
PS2 and PS3, 6 years.

I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft is looking into a next gen system, one that can handle 1080P output. I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo is looking to make a next gen system that handles some type of HD output. I can understand Sony simply buying time.

Most people I know have a Wii plus one of the other two systems. Wii for party games, one of the others for Netflix onto their main HDTV plus retro games (the majority of my friends are over 45).

No, the XBox 360 was limited to 720P the last time I looked. Ah, I'm remembering the 720P as the target resolution for games not general video output. My bad.

In that case I can see the 360 hang on for a while longer. The various hardware upgrades over the years have "fixed" most of its shortcomings and I can't see a reason offhand to improve CPU/GPU performance unless 3D takes off, which I doubt.

right now is really the "inbetween" time for the gaming industry. Kids are back in school and dont have time to play games 24/7 like they did over summer vacation, there are some good games that were just released, however not everyone is interested, also the economy is still in the toilet and folks are holding back on purchasing things until christmas.....


Yea I know some of the things I said were repeated however I felt like adding my 2 pennies......lol

I don't find most games worth buying these days. I can finish most of the ones I'm interested in wihin a 2-5 day rental period, and lately very few of them have had any replay value beyond that. Thus, paying $60 for such a game rarely makes much sense, and oftenends up being a regret (such as with the recent Halo: Reach).

I hate getting any title that can beaten in 10 hours. 30 to 60 hours is generally the number hours i like to aim for when I buy game... and I'd like to think that there are still games out there that approach the 100+ hour mark, but it seems as time goes on there are less and less games that are even over 10... and it only makes it worse that prices have climbed over the last few years....