DS Games Selling Badly: Or Why Install Base isn't the End All Be All

[jman8]

kuraobi said:
Actually it's quite simple to understand. If the install base is X consoles, the number of games sold will end at N.X, where N is the final tie ratio. N can vary with a few factors, like if it's a handheld or a console, how much the games cost, is the console really a console, etc. Moreover, N tends to be smaller when the install base is bigger, because core gamers represent a smaller percentage.

So the numbers of games sold is quite fixed by the hardware itself. Now if there are 100M games to be sold on a console and 20M on another, you can be sure that developers will make about 5 times more games for the first one, resulting in good sales for all the games.

So when games globally don't sell well on a console, it's because there's too many games released on this console. On the other hand, if games sell excessively well on a console, it's because there aren't enough games on this console.

Anyway developers are quite good at maintaining a good balance, except for shovelware that tend to hurt a bit the sales of good games on the leading console.

Finally, someone who gets it. I didn't think what I was saying was that crazy.