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Analyst expects 20% game sales slide in June

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpotPosted Jul 10, 2009 11:55 am PT

Pacific Crest Securities' Evan Wilson expects Fight Night Round 4 to break 1 million in disappointing month, says recession may be hitting games harder than previously thought.

While year-over-year US retail software sales have been down sharply in recent months, analysts have expressed only mild concern, saying the problem is not this year's crop of titles, but last year's. The idea is that sales have been down not because the industry is softening, but because it's having to compete against a first half of 2008 that saw mega-blockbuster releases like Grand Theft Auto 4, Mario Kart Wii, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

The industry's rope-a-dope strategy may not be working...

With the industry-tracking NPD Group set to release its sales for June 2009 next week, one analyst is starting to rethink that notion. Pacific Crest Securities' Evan Wilson sent an NPD preview note to investors this week in which he estimated software sales for the month to be down 20 percent year-over-year to $700 million.

"Our most recent checks have indicated that the relative health that we have seen may not have continued into June," Wilson said. "Our contacts indicate that sales in the important 'school's out' period, especially in the last two weeks of June, were disappointing and represented a deviation in the early-year trend. While it is too early to call a long-term trend, we have taken a more conservative view of new and catalog products in our June NPD forecast. If the data back up our checks, it may be time to reassess the degree to which videogames really are 'recession proof.'"

While tough comparisons against last year's slate of titles have been blamed for prior months' decreases, Wilson blamed his projected June slowdown on sluggish reception for some of the month's biggest releases and slipping consumer confidence. Of the games to debut during the month, Wilson pegged Fight Night Round 4, Prototype, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, and Ghostbusters as the biggest of the bunch. The analyst estimated sales of 1.1 million for Fight Night across platforms, with Prototype not too far behind at 750,000.

"Prototype started well, especially in competition with Infamous," Wilson said, "but neither game appears to have much of a tail."

216 Comments

  • steelsoldier666

    Posted Jul 14, 2009 11:41 am PT

    A lot of People can´t buy games right now because they keep increasing their damn prices, I predict if the prices of every games was reduced to half there would be a 200% increase on People buying Games. Whoever Gaming Industries increase the price in order to get the ammount of money they actually want without having many buyers. I hope Gaming Industries suffer a lot and rethink on what they are actually doing, because they are acting like children trying to achieve the means to get what they want from Us.

  • gam3r3OOO

    Posted Jul 14, 2009 9:47 am PT

    Does this really need to be mentioned? I mean its obvious why. no exciting titles = no sales

    Games sell best when: A) a hugely hyped and popular game comes out B) when its the holiday season C) when summer ends/fall begins (school starts)
    Games sell worst in the summer.

    "says recession may be hitting games harder than previously thought"
    biggest load of BS. Why do journalists like to repeat each other so much?

  • NikBZero

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 4:25 pm PT

    there's not really been any note worthy titles out that month only more of the same crp Wii games

  • KreepLX

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 3:53 pm PT

    Yea, great June catalog. These people get big bucks to add 2 + 2 = ?.

  • Icehearted

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 3:45 pm PT

    :
    We do pay out of the a** for DLC, but some companies attempt to give us a freebie occasionally. For example,Bungie with Cold Storage

    Actually, and this isn't known by a lot of people, dlc pricing and management is mostly governed by MS and not the game's publishers/devs, who coincidentally want most of it to be free. There is a story about how Epic wanted one of their games to have free map packs, but MS refused, so they released them for a fee and then made them free after a few months.
    If anyone is to blame for content charges it's MS, Sony, Nintendo. Remember when game devs were nice enough to release free map packs and such for the PC? Now that home consoles have hard drives, they're all about gouging the new market for all it's worth.

  • jtthegame316

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 3:03 pm PT

    i am not suprised sales are down in the us because they don't seem to get any deals when it comes to games we do in the uk full price here is £40 but we can shop around and find it a lot cheaper some where but in the us it seems to stay at $60 everywhere you look.

  • mcginnism

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 2:07 pm PT

    In January they were predicting that this would be THE BEST YEAR EVER!!!!!

    Nevermind that no major releases were expected until fall, and all of them were tentative release dates. Nevermind we're in a recession.

    What a bunch of idiots, and I'm sure they'll all keep their jobs--a perfect example of how stock analysts get to manipulate stock prices without any accountability at all.

  • mark_unix

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 1:29 pm PT

    that's what u get when you publish all the games of 2009 in 2010...
    they just delayed everything...

  • thenephariouson

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 11:32 am PT

    Wow these Anal-ists really know their onions dont they? Maybe the 'slump' is due to the fact that there has'nt been any real major noteworthy releases. Wait till October/November where you have SC:Conviction, AC2, Boishock 2, COD MW2, among a few other AAA games, then lets wait for the headline Anal-ists predict rise in game sales, the numpties really make me giggle : )

  • Gruug

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 11:19 am PT

    While I have purchased 4 games in the last month (3 for the PC and one for the 360), I will be cancelling two of my MMORPG subscriptions this month. Why? Because I am concerned about my economic situation....the Recovery Act of 2009 hasn't helped me at all.

  • thetravman

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 11:05 am PT

    Keep releasing sequels. Everything will be fine.

  • Brainkiller05

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 10:26 am PT

    I expect a 23% increase, man I wish I could get paid to say this stuff.

  • LordRazu

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 10:04 am PT

    We do pay out of the a** for DLC, but some companies attempt to give us a freebie occasionally. For example,Bungie with Cold Storage

  • lilmichaelson

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 9:44 am PT

    The good games are coming out in the fall/winter such as Cod: Modern Warfare 2, Assassins Creed 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Bioshock 2. Plus at the end of summer that new halo game is coming out, and you can tell me all about how different it is but because "halo" is in the title and it's an fps you can count on millions being sold.

  • migueltyson

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 9:41 am PT

    The complaints about DLC is all about supply and demand. If consumers are going to continue to pay for DLC, there will always be a price tag on it. Consumers need to realize that they shouldn't have to pay for "the rest of a game" if that is not how it was packaged. If new costumes, boards and perks are available via DLC, then when are we going to realize that we just burned $60 for an incomplete game?
    Oh, yeah, sales will pick up once there is something that a majority of consumers are impressed with. It has nothing to do with the lack of quality games because what you don't like someone else might love. The industry just doesn't space out their "blockbuster" titles so they get all of their money at once for the 3-4 titles released at the same time and then struggle to make numbers until the next batch is released. Throw in DLC and the industry makes back some of the money they lose when there are no big selling titles out.

  • THE_DAD

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 9:38 am PT

    last year was great! gta4, mgs4, gears of war 2, fall out 3 and many more i cant see much this year.

  • Sea_Bread

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 8:45 am PT

    a bit late to post this innit? we're in july already.

  • Xcite79

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 8:30 am PT

    Games was the problem, not money. There was little I was looking forward to that month.

  • Corelis

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 8:25 am PT

    What recession??? I bought 3 of 4 of the games mentioned above, the only 1 I didn't get was FNR4, didn't like the controls in the demo and basically wasn't at all interested in it. Analysts do not look at game content as us gamers do.. Put out games worth playing and they are recession proof

  • Icehearted

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 8:20 am PT

    They said, over and over mind you, that the gaming industry is recession proof. I say, in light of that arrogance, these shortcomings are a well deserved and welcome humbling. Maybe some better appreciation for their customers rather than assuming were infinitely deep pockets and will buy anything with Mario or Master Chief on it will come of this.

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