14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that September will be judged to be a good month for videogaming when the NPD Group hardware and software sales numbers are released. For the first time in seven months, the industry is set to post positive growth numbers mainly on the back of the price cuts that kicked in for the PlayStation 3, with the release of the Slim, and then for the Xbox 360 Elite. Also for the first time in quite a while, the Sony home gaming console could top the hardware sales chart, beating both the Microsoft device and the Nintendo Wii.
Jesse Divnich, who is an analyst with EEDAR, believes that the average price of sales for a videogame going up 10% is partly responsible for the better September numbers but says there are grim signs for the PlayStation Portable and the Wii, the only two platforms that will not be seeing an increase in sales for the month.
Still, Divnich thinks that the pick up in September is not yet a sign of an organic growth. He told Gamasutra that “While September is expected to post impressive year-over-year gains, we do not expect similar trends to continue in October. Based upon EEDAR’s forecasts, October’s new releases would need to produce $225 million to post flat year-over-year comps. Currently, EEDAR projects high single digit growth in October, low double digit growth in November, and single digit growth in December.”
It's rather unusual to have a good September, a bad October, and then positive growth for November and December, but the economic-impaired 2009 is anything but a normal year.
With big releases like Uncharted 2 and Modern Warfare 2 still in the future and with more price cuts possible in time for Christmas, it will be fascinating to watch how the industry evolves until the end of 2009.