VIDEO: Consoles Are Selling In 2014 But Games Are NOT Selling!

[Little Miss Gloom]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJqeDDBPd-4

Pretty much, the tides of another video game crash are drawing near.

Craighead posted this recently, and I was wondering what peoples' thoughts were. Personally speaking, I knew it was a matter of time before another crash happened. Like Craig puts it, there's too much money being poured into the industry with so little return. I think many gamers are finally starting to realize that they're being manipulated and burned far too often by unethical practices, and just are not standing for it anymore.

[Rickstilwell1]

I blame it more on game prices just being too high. A lot of people wait for games to be sold as used or put in the discount rack because then the price is lower. These used games don't increase the sales of new copies any.

[Greg2600]

Mostly it's this:

[Leo_A]

Another videogame crash has been drawing near according to forumgoers since I logged onto the first gaming forum I ever visited back around 1997 or so.

Hasn't happened yet.

That there's a decline in interest in Xbox 360/Playstation 3 software over 8 years into this generation and a shortage of compelling next generation Xbox One/Playstation 4 releases (And few deals for what's available...not even most early adapters can walk out with every game of interest at $60 a pop) a few months into it is hardly a surprise or abnormal.

What would be strange right now would be record setting software sales.

[bb_hood]

This current generation of consoles is very unimpressive and the software available is even less impressive. Its just not worth paying retail price for. Its no wonder why game sales are slow. If game companies feel the need to spend 500$ million to develop one game then they deserve to go under.
Sales will pickup once more/better software is released at a cheaper price.

[Bojay1997]

Another videogame crash has been drawing near according to forumgoers since I logged onto the first gaming forum I ever visited back around 1997 or so.

Hasn't happened yet.

That there's a decline in interest in Xbox 360/Playstation 3 software over 8 years into this generation and a shortage of compelling next generation Xbox One/Playstation 4 releases (And few deals for what's available...not even most early adapters can walk out with every game of interest at $60 a pop) a few months into it is hardly a surprise or abnormal.

What would be strange right now would be record setting software sales.

You hit it on the head precisely. There is no impending crash and this is just the normal transition between hardware generations.

[Niku-Sama]

Let's see. New systems, no games, makes sense. Always happened before, devs have to catch up.

[Zthun]

I blame it more on game prices just being too high. A lot of people wait for games to be sold as used or put in the discount rack because then the price is lower. These used games don't increase the sales of new copies any.

Actually, when compared to older titles adjusted for inflation, games are really cheap today. People just don't have money.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Pretty much, the tides of another video game crash are drawing near.

Do you really believe that? DUDE. The industry is about 10,000x bigger than it was in 1984. It's also global. Saying the game industry is about to crash is like saying the film industry is about to crash. Or how about that McDonalds is going to go out of buisness next year. That's the level of absurdity in the assumption that the game industry is about to crash.


so sales are down from what they work a year ago? GEE I WONDER WHY. Could it perhaps have something to do with the fact that by 2013 the seventh generation consoles had such a vast install base and were into their golden years where developers could really pump out quality titles that people wanted to play?

By contrast, the eighth generation of consoles have just begun, their install bases are small and their library of games pretty....unimpressive right now?


If you don't remember, the Xbox 360 and PS3 both had a pretty sparse first year. It really wasn't until 2007 and 2008 when they really started to get excellent titles and sales exploded.

So again. The sales of games are lower now than they were a year ago for two main reasons: The eighth generation install base is considerably smaller, and there aren't many must-have games for any of them yet. Add to the fact that many games are also still being developed for PS3 and 360 and there's little reason to upgrade for many people.

[Tanooki]

Not going to watch the video, no time, but I can guess at it reading that post.

The problem is right, too much cash goes into trying to beat out the other guy hollywooding up all their stuff, yet doing little to diversify and make more efforts throwing all their dough into one project, and when it fails, you see time and again another studio being bought out or into bankruptcy taking people to the poor house like Curt Schilling had happen with his game and his baseball fortune up in smoke. Yet, you find with the tablet market, handheld dedicated systems, and PC/download console/handheld indie markets that diversity and invention are still alive and these are done on the cheap from backyard project to just a few hundred K or a little more thrown into it. These games you see more and more of them exploding in popularity and taking off in some cases like gangbusters like Minecraft, Angry Birds, and various others.

It's sad, but there won't be a real crash, but there will be in time a hard reality check, a true gaming bitchslapping coming that'll fix this mess they've created. As it stands now you're on the edge of where you see the mob guys (gamers) driving the victims(big box game makers) out into the middle of nowhere to find 2 shovels waiting and being told to DIG! They deserve it. They're so damn blind and/or arrogant not caring what they're doing to gamers because in some cases the sucker train never seems to really run off (call of duty, madden, tiger woods golf, etc) yet in a lot of others, you see more and more bitching and moaning up to down right fury online. Day ONE DLC that pretty much puts the other 20% of the game into the game you just paid full price for, or where Capcom did it, hiding it on the damned disc with SF4. Everyone being used as a secondary beta testing paying guinea pig getting screwed with issues they'll fix maybe later, sometimes they don't like Sega/Bayonetta so Sony had to fix it on PS3 for them. When you throw that stuff in there with all the abuse and tunnel vision on disc development, it's no wonder games of the past could stay at $50 for 6mo-1+years and now you see sales and price drops within weeks or a month of arrival which is going to eat them alive. I almost never buy new games anymore unless I know the developer is a tightass like Nintendo and won't allow sales for years like on Mario Golf 3DS. I'll buy stuff 1-3mo later or more and get it for 33-50% off the old retail value, perhaps less online used if I go that route not wanting to wait because it's even killing the resale market on stuff faster.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

I don't see there being a crash. For one, didn't GTA5 just sell more copies on its release date then any other game in history? It's slow on the PS4 and Xbox One right now, but on the previous consoles there's just hit after hit after hit still being released.

I'm not saying there's no problems with the way games are being made and released and all that, I'll most definately agree, but I see no crash coming. It's quiet for games on the PS4/Xbone cuz they're new systems. I don't remember from back then, but I was told the PS2 also had a slow start for games being released. The only game I remember from that time being announced was The Getaway. And we all know what a must-have that game turned out to be! But my point is, look how successful the PS2 was, and how many amazing games it has.

I personally hate DLC's, I do not get them, Idc. I won't ever buy a game when it's brand new either, like everyone else. But that practice has been going on for years, that's nothing new. I remember PS1 games costing $50 new also. My mom spent $50 on Rainbow Six for me for xmas one year, and the game was shit.

Yea, lotsa people are buying games used for cheaper, but if u look at the logic, the fact that they're used means someone's out there buying it new in the first place. So games definately are selling.

[otaku]

games need to cost less what people are doing is buying the consoles and then waiting and getting games once they've dropped in price. Hell honestly I plan on catching up on some past gen games at discounted prices and wait for prices to fall on this gens games and consoles