Difference in Opinion

The Associated Press reported that videogame sales were up by 57% in March, jumping to $1.7 billion. Most of the success is due to the recent release of Super Smash Bros: Brawl for the Nintendo Wii. With other blockbusters like GTA IV and Metal Gear Solid 4 looming in the not-so-distant future, it looks as if the whole industry is going to be getting some shots of money adrenaline.

Here are some excerpts from their story with many stats from NPD analyst Anita Frazier:

“Video game software sales jumped 63 percent from March 2007 to $945.6 million, blowing past analysts’ expectations. Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter, for one, had expected game software sales to grow 47 percent over last year.

Nintendo’s ”Super Smash Bros: Brawl” for the Wii was the month’s top-selling game with 2.7 million units sold.

Coming in a distant second was ”Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2” from Ubisoft with 752,300 units and ”Army of Two” from Electronic Arts Inc. with 606,100. All three games hit store shelves in March.

Hardware sales grew 46 percent to $551.3 million from $377.9 million, with Nintendo’s Wii and portable DS far outselling every other system. The Japanese company grabbed 58 percent of the game hardware market during the month as Wii shortages seemed to abate.

Americans bought 721,000 Wiis during the month, 67 percent more than in February. The DS was the second best-selling system with 698,000 units, and Sony Corp.’s handheld PSP came in a distant third with 297,000.

Game accessories, at times an overlooked category, reaped in $220 million, up 58 percent from a year earlier. Xbox Live points and subscription cards were among the top-selling accessories in March, along with the PS3 wireless controller”

If Halo 3 was able to raise so much awareness by itself back in September, it is hard to imagine what credibility these recent stats will give the gaming industry. Gaming is viral and expanding in every direction possible; as a hobby, as a profession and as an entertainment industry. The more attention it gets from mainstream media, the more emphasis and attention to detail the developers will put into games.

The gamer can do nothing better for themselves than buy good games and skip over the bad ones. Developers see those numbers, and if they don’t then journalists will shove it down their throat. If a game does great and they grab a large profit, then they will put the same time and care into making other games like that. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? If a game flops, then they will look at other titles they had that were successful, or even other titles they didn’t make and take a lesson from them. We decide what makes a good game, and we are the evolution of this industry.