Games Industry Sees 12 Billion in Sales For 2006 181
Gamespot is reporting that, with the NPD numbers in, we can finally put the debate about last year's winners and losers to rest. Overall, the industry was the winner, with a record-breaking $12.5 Billion in sales last year. December accounted for almost $4 Billion all by itself. In software, the usual suspects prevailed. Madden topped the chart with 2.8 Million in sales for the PS2 version of Madden 07. Right behind was New Super Mario Bros. on the DS, with some 2 Million in sales of its own. On the console side of things ... well, as Kotaku points out 'everyone is a winner' this year. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have all put out press releases declaring themselves the winner of the Holiday console wars. The sad reality, though, is there can be only one. According to the NPD numbers, between the launch of the new consoles and the end of the year, some 1.1 Million Nintendo Wiis were sold with 687,300 PS3s following closely behind. Microsoft trails with its numbers from 2005; it sold 607,000 consoles in its launch year. Don't feel too bad for Microsoft, though. They sold 1.1 Million 360s in December. The article points out this means Microsoft met its '10 Million in sales' goal for the end of 2006.
Gears of War sales? (Score:4, Interesting)
Analyst concerns (Score:5, Interesting)
If the 1.1 million figure was just December, then it would make more sense. But 1.1 million since launch? That seems incredibly low no matter which way you cut it.
(Of course, that probably means that the PS3 and Xbox360 numbers are low as well.)
Re:Price (Score:4, Interesting)
True, to hardcore gamers price possibly isn't AS big a deal, but even there I am betting a number of people that would have picked up the PS3 (despite the lackluster showing of games) are waiting it out for better games and a pricedrop (where in over cases people would have been willing to pick it up and then wait for the games).
Oh, and with the 360's showin in December, it looks like the race is going to be between MS and Nintendo.
Re:What you mean ... (Score:3, Interesting)
This misses subscription services such as WoW? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure I see any PC games in the lists in the article, actually.
The real race starts (Score:2, Interesting)
To that effect, if the Wii doesn't get unique games (instead of the same games on other systems with enhanced controlling schemes), the Wii might end up being the loser. Waving a remote might sound awesome for the next few months, but then people will realize that other games treat the Wii as a gimmick instead of a real console.
Microsoft has to ensure proper Live maintenance, and try to bring the price down. If either the PS3 or Wii picks up online steam, people will question their $50 a year charge just to play online. MS might just try to float with just Halo 3 as it's flagship, but there might just be a point and time when FPS gets tiring. Then what's left?
Sony has their work cut out for them. Thankfully, I don't hear about consoles keeling over, so they got 1 thing right this launch with no consoles just dying. Now they just need to work on their online segemnt, especially if their deal with xfire leads to a centralized friends list like xbox live:http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/316.html. All of the perks of Live witht he fee of free might just have people eat the $500-$600 price tag. Now it's just getting developers to make awesome games for the PS3.
i think we're seeing the death of mass 3rd party console exclusives. Some companies (Capcom) might stay exclusive for a few franchises, but I thnk alot of developers will be multiplatform publishers. The real winner in this generation? Us. Anytime there's heated competition there's been great games (SNESGenesis, PS2Xbox)
10 million worldwide? (Score:5, Interesting)
According to these NPD numbers [gamesarefun.com] Microsoft has sold a cumulative total of 4.5 million 360s in the US. So if they've hit 10 million they must have sold 5.5 million in the rest of the world. They've sold 200k in Japan [gamesarefun.com] so that would mean 5.3 million split between Europe, Australia and other smaller markets. I had the impression that the US was by far and away Microsoft's strongest market, is there some factor i'm not considering?
Re:This misses subscription services such as WoW? (Score:2, Interesting)
No, they lost 'new console launches' (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course all of them were production limited initially, so all this by itself really means is that Nintendo had the best pre-launch manufacturing story. Now I guarantee you this wasn't an accident, and manufacturability was a major consideration in the Wii's design. Still it doesn't tell the story of right now, which is that the 360 is way ahead, thanks to the whole year they had to fix their production problems and sell consoles with no next-gen competition.
Speaking of, I am once again boggled at the Sony fanbois who use the PS1 and PS2 as proof that PS3 will dominate Nintendo and MS, but forget about that all-important year lead time PS1 had on N64 and PS2 had on Xbox and GC. Now the shoe is on the other foot and Sony is starting this generation as the marketshare underdog.
Re:Nifty (Score:2, Interesting)
Because we feel it sets a bad precident.
It is true that over the years there have been many new features added to the Madden series. However, the number of features added each new year is small. This is not to say that they are bad features, but that alone they don't seem to be worth another $60 investment.
What worries us is the success of this model. If developers get the message that they can release minor updates as full blown games, the possibilities for abuse and mediocrity are numerous. Imagine Microsoft releasing Halo 3 each year, adding a couple more levels and some small number of new features included. The mere prospect is horrific.
It may be that only the more hardcore or well invested casual players care, but it shakes us to think that developers might see the Madden series and think, "Why am I taking 2-3 years to make a sequel to my game, when obviously players are more than happy to pay exactly the same price for far less new product!"
Part of the issue may be that "nerds" as it were, see new rosters as a very trivial feature while many of the principle buyers of Madden see it as a very big one. This is possibly because the nerds see the rosters as merely slightly different statistics and barely more than gameplay tweaks, while understanding how simple it is to take players already existing in the game and change their numbers.
Regardless, Madden and other sports titles aren't the only series that do this. Koei's Dynasty Warriors series has some variation or other that hits the market every year.