This week in video gaming news there are new releases and new revelations about games out on the market. Forza 3 has a bit of a physics mishap and Ballad of Gay Tony shakes the GTA community. Also, there is an interesting video showing what Sony could have done with the Eyetoy if the company just had the foresight.
The games industry seems to have at last stopped the slide which has seen revenues drop six months in succession. While the increase was only slight, with the holiday season just around the corner, things are most definitely looking up. The PS3 won the hardware battle as expected, with only the DS preventing it from managing a clean sweep. Meanwhile, Halo 3: ODST sold massively well, racking up sales of over 1.5 million units.
July was a slow month in gaming with sales dropping for the past five months. However, August looks to be a new month with some indication of the holiday season finally creeping upon us. Almost all of the platforms increased in August from July, with the PS3 taking an exceptional leap. Unfortunately, the legendary PS2 continues its downward spiral.
Nintendo has had a fantastic generation this time around, being gifted with having two consoles on the market with mass mainstream appeal. Both the Wii and Nintendo DS have sold in colossal numbers at startling rates. A sales decline has looked inevitable for the last few months, and so it has come to pass. Nintendo has even admitted as much.
The signs have been there for the last few months but June finally saw conclusive evidence that the video games industry is not recession-proof. June saw sales fall year-on-year for the fourth month in a row and the largest year-on-year monthly decline since September 2000.
If you still believe that gaming is a niche hobby for those of us up on our technology, proud to be called geeks, and happy to pull all-nighters playing a particular title, then what rock have you been living under? The videogame landscape is now a violent shade of casual, with new gamers of all ages, sexes and races popping up every day.
I think we can safely put to bed the idea that the video games sector is resistant to the economic ebb and flow. Maybe it’s just the strength of this current recession but console sales once again dropped by a considerable margin, both from the previous month, and the same month a year ago. The PS3 and Xbox 360 may both be cutting-edge but this month’s sales figures are positively dire.
One of the biggest criticisms Sony has received is in regards to the company’s inability to play nice with itself. Sony Pictures and Sony Computer Entertainment apparently do not talk to each other well. However, it seems that the two divisions came together for once to work in harmony to bring the PS3 an exclusive game.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is an extremely fun game. The developers at Rockstar have done a mighty fine job in translating the latest iteration in the famous franchise to the Nintendo DS. However, despite the high expectations the sales have been lackluster. Rockstar may have made a mistake switching from the PSP to the DS.
The handheld games market is suddenly looking a lot more interesting, possibly more so than it has since the days of the Sega Game Gear and, hmm, the Atari Lynx. Rumors surrounding the next iteration of the PSP have been flying around for some time but now the Sony console looks set to become reality.
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