14 DAY TRIAL // The NPD Group, which tracks sales of videogame hardware and software on the North American market, is set to release its sales numbers for June at some point during this week and analysts are already issuing predictions related to what they'll be telling us about the videogaming industry, which has had rough five months this year.
One analyst says that, rather than getting better, the outlook will be getting worse with overall revenue gained from sales set to decline by as much as 20% when compared to 2008. Evan Wilson, who is working for Pacific Crest Securities, states that his prediction is based on the continuing slide of the American economy and on the lack of blockbusters released during June.
Wilson sent a note to investors and stated that “Our most recent checks have indicated that the relative health that we have seen may not have continued into June. Our contacts indicate that sales in the important 'school's out' period, especially in the last two weeks of June, were disappointing and represented a deviation in the early-year trend. While it is too early to call a long-term trend, we have taken a more conservative view of new and catalog products in our June NPD forecast. If the data back up our checks, it may be time to reassess the degree to which videogames really are ‘recession proof’.”
Pacific Crest Securities is saying that the biggest videogame of June is set to be Fight Night Round 4 from Electronic Arts, which has managed to sell more than 1.1 million units across all the platforms on which it was released, while Prototype might also get near the million-sale mark. Other games that performed well during June 2009 are Ghostbusters and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10. The analyst has not predicted how gaming consoles will fare during the same period of time.