Video Game Sales Slip Sixth Month in a Row

Zzzzzzzzz It's August the sleepiest month of the year for video games, which has been true since the beginning of time.<p>Look to see a big bump in sales in Sept when all the fall games start to come out and when the new PS3 price drop has effect.<p>As well the sales could still be year over year worse than last Sept and it wouldn't be the end of the world. The games industry traditionally follows a console cycle (though that will likely be broken up this time around with the launch of Natal and Sony's Waggle next year) and so once you're past the peak some years after a launch, your sales will necessarily decline until the next console launch.

Remember all those "video games are recession-resistant" stories a year ago? The truth was always that, at least in the US, game sales depend largely on the console cycle and are thus falling with lower console sales.

It's not a 16% droping trend, or the recession. There tend to be good years and bad years for game releases. If you look at the NPD stats for more than one year in the past you can see that. Last year was amazingly good - loads of well-received big hitters. This year's a slow year and is consistent with sales from other off years.<p>Many of the big titles that were due this year have been put back to a 2010 release. This Christmas we have only have three big-hitters: Assassin's Creed 2, Uncharted 2 and Modern Warfare 2. Good for publishers of those three I guess. We also have the recent releases of the PS3 Slim and Rock Band: The Beatles.<p>Next year we get all the games that were delayed this year (Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction etc.) on top of a number of good releases that were originally due. I predict that 2010 will be an on year.

It's very difficult because there hasn't been any major graphic enhancements or radical new story lines to convince consumers to purchase new games.

#2 Wii Sports Resort... man, does that game suck. It is nothing more than a demo for the Wii Motion Plus. Period.