NPD Shows 20% Drop

[Mar 08, 2012, 9:14 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

Forbes has the February report on U.S. retail video game sales from NPD Group, which covers new packaged retail games, and does not account for used games or games sold online. Word is: "Overall sales were $1.06 billion, down from $1.33 billion. Hardware sales were down 18% to $381.4 million from $466.9 million. Accessories sales were $215.2 million, down 16% from $256.9 million. Video game software sales were $464.4 million, down 23% from $601.4 million. If you include PC games, software sales were $485.7 million, down 24% from $637.4 million."

View

13 Replies. 1 pages. Viewing page 1.
< Newer [ 1 ] Older >

13.

Re: NPD Shows 20% Drop

Mar 9, 2012, 17:58

jdwohlever

NPD is pointless. I for one, haven't bought a PC from a brick and mortar store in over 3 years. For one, you can't find any decent PC games in stores anymore and secondly, Steam digital distribution is a much better organization system for gaming anyway.
But, some suit will read this from NPD and decide they wont publish a PC game because NPD says PC gaming is dead.




Xbox Live Ambassador (RET) Founder of PERS0NA, a non-profit scientific paranormal investigation society "American by Birth, Gamer by the Grace of God"

12.

Re: NPD Shows 20% Drop

Mar 9, 2012, 13:09

Beelzebud

NPD is useless for tracking PC sales, these days. I for one, know that the last game I bought in a shop was over a year ago. I can buy and download a game from Steam in less time than it would take to drive to a place that sold video games.

11.

Re: NPD Shows 20% Drop

Mar 9, 2012, 07:02

ASeven

Dev wrote on Mar 9, 2012, 03:08: ASeven wrote on Mar 8, 2012, 23:26: I think that's the point of NPD, retail sales only. After all they still take up the major bulk of revenue, for now. For consoles, yeah. For PC, I think Valve is doing a big percentage. Absolutely! I have no doubt that PC gaming sales have been increasing exponentially each month and most of it happens digitally. Steam, Gamersgate, Gamefly, etc.

10.

Re: NPD Shows 20% Drop

Mar 9, 2012, 04:51

InBlack

Newsflash! Digital Sales Up by 40% F2P models thriving and making money...




I have a nifty blue line!

Re: NPD Shows 20% Drop

Mar 9, 2012, 04:06

Kosumo

Dev wrote on Mar 8, 2012, 20:51: So there we go, thats my wild guesses based on a few facts. Not bad, but I'd like it more wild and more guesses and cut that facts down to two with one being about God. [VG]Reagle wrote on Mar 8, 2012, 21:42: I could wipe my ass I call you bluff, come on then, do it.

Re: NPD Shows 20% Drop

Mar 9, 2012, 03:08

Dev

ASeven wrote on Mar 8, 2012, 23:26: I think that's the point of NPD, retail sales only. After all they still take up the major bulk of revenue, for now. For consoles, yeah. For PC, I think Valve is doing a big percentage.

Re: NPD Shows 20% Drop

Mar 8, 2012, 23:26

ASeven

[VG]Reagle wrote on Mar 8, 2012, 21:42: This means NOTHING. NOOOOOOOOTHING. It does not acount for online sales* lol. I could wipe my ass and come up with a more meaningful measure of games sold.* I think that's the point of NPD, retail sales only. After all they still take up the major bulk of revenue, for now.

Re: NPD Shows 20% Drop

Mar 8, 2012, 21:51

Shok

In other news, Gabe Newell is worth at least $1.5 Billion.

Re: NPD Shows 20% Drop

Mar 8, 2012, 21:42

[VG]Reagle

This means NOTHING. NOOOOOOOOTHING. It does not acount for online sales lol. I could wipe my ass and come up with a more meaningful measure of games sold.




[VG]Reagle Beagle

Re: NPD Shows 20% Drop

Mar 8, 2012, 21:25

ASeven

The gaming industry is getting close to 2003 levels. Console retail market is going to hell and at this point I doubt any new console, especially if the rumored specs are any true (A freaking 6670 for the next Xbox), will revert the trend. Too many alternatives, too many better business models, too many better games or better entertainment than AAA crap out there, simply too many alternatives. Gamers are getting tired of being publisher's personal wallets, even console gamers. Even using the tired old fallacy of not having new releases doesn't cut it since this drop and January's are far more significant than any drop in the past 3 years in months that were far drier in terms of no releases than the current one. Ah well at this point I guess it's only fair to say that unless current publishers drastically change direction and business models this gaming industry is good as gone in its current format. Then again if the publishers are gone and the middle men extinguished in the gaming industry, as it seems more and more new and veteran devs are following that route of going indie, I don't think anyone will miss them publishers. Maybe then the industry can again relive its golden age of the 90s.

Re: NPD Shows 20% Drop

Mar 8, 2012, 20:51

Dev

So PC retail game sales from Feb were just 20 million? Taking those numbers, average yearly retail PC game sales are only a few hundred million. No wonder gamestop doesn't like to carry PC titles. I know I said valve with steam probably has 30-40% of the PC game market, seeing those numbers, I bet its more like 50-70%. Edit: NPD estimates total US gaming spending at a bit over $16 billion in 2011 Also the november numbers were up almost 60% for PC, because of skyrim, BF3, etc. Ah here we go http://tekgoblinmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/NPD_Report.jpg PC physical retail games were 440 million for USA in 2011. Text for your Link EA's last annual report was through march 2011 said they had $669 million from PC worldwide. Total game sales of europe and asia together are almost as much as the total game sales of USA. So to get a reasonable worldwide estimate to compare with, I'm going to guess that worldwide retail PC was probably around $800 billion (almost doubling the NPD number). Stupid ubisoft doesn't break down their numbers by platform, but they had about 1 billion total sales (in euros). I'm going to take a wild guess they have a similar percentage to EA of PC sales (ea has about 19% PC sales). So that makes ubi roughly $250 million USD in PC sales. http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1047469-12-1775 Blizzard took in $1.4 billion from WoW alone. And about $350 million from PC. So top three big publishers have something like $1.3 billion in wordwide 2011 PC sales. Compared to the $800 million retail worldwide PC estimate. I'm going to make another wild guess that all the other publishers combined make up something like another $300 million, for a total PC market of at least double the retail (perhaps more once casual games are added in). Now for steam, it wouldn't at all surprise me to learn that sales at least equal the retail PC market, so I'm going to call it that valve had sales of $800 million to $1 billion go through them in 2011. So there we go, thats my wild guesses based on a few facts. This comment was edited on Mar 8, 2012, 22:04.

Re: NPD Shows 20% Drop

Mar 8, 2012, 20:45

The Half Elf

Hope this puts a damper on Gamestop's parade.

Re: NPD Shows 20% Drop

Mar 8, 2012, 20:41

swedishfriend

if they don't account for on-line sales then they are inaccurate now and more so every week. Why report on this drop in sales when the actual numbers may be vastly different?

13 Replies. 1 pages. Viewing page 1.
< Newer [ 1 ] Older >