VIDEO GAME publishers are returning to their roots and core gamers to maintain sales as a contraction in the industry is expected to mean fewer new releases.
Mainstream audiences are expected to flock to upcoming big titles like Sony's God of War 3, Take-Two Interactive's Mafia 2, and Electronic Arts' Mass Effect 2, but the game industry is working to make sure its biggest supporters, core gamers, are happy.
"2010 looks to be a good year for core gamers with a steady stream of titles like THQ's Darksiders, Sega's Bayonettaand Electronic Arts's Army of Two: The 40th Day," said John Taylor, videogame analyst for Arcadia Research.
In 2009, many game-makers focused on mainstream and casual gamers with titles like MTV Games's The Beatles: Rock Bandand Ubisoft's Your Shapeexercise game for Wii – games and consoles which many hardcore gamers shun. However, after three years of strong sales, Nintendo's Wii hardware sales have slowed and the music video game genre is no longer a key sales driver.
Michael Pachter, videogame analyst for Wedbush Securities, said video game hardware and software sales totalled about $16.8 billion (€11.7 billion) in 2009, down 18 per cent from $19.5 billion in 2008 despite strong Wii sales in the US in the holiday season.
Despite the record-setting launch of Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which accounted for over $550 million in its first week alone, game software sales were down 11 per cent in 2009 to $10.5 billion. Things though are looking up on the software side.
Mr Pachter expects software sales to be up 10 per cent this year due to a line-up of game releases like Sony's racing simulation Gran Turismo 5, Microsoft's sci-fi shooter Halo Reachand Take-Two Interactive's underwater epic BioShock 2. He said games would be the key driver this year. – (Reuters)
