| nintendo_fanboy said: As much as I like your idea of expanding the market so immensely, you'll have to take it in another relation too. First, you can't compare cost and time needed of video games and home videos. Here in Switzerland, as in Germany too I think, games cost about five times more than DVD's. Also, watching a DVD needs you to invest about two hours, while playing a game takes you more like ten hours. Both of this factors lead to a lower attach rate. If there would be the same amount of gaming consoles as there are DVD players, software sales still couldn't compare against DVD sales. Also, the music industry which is definitely big too despite struggling against illegal downloads etc. is apparently comparably small to the home video industry, since, if I remember correctly, Michael Jacksons Thriller is the best selling album ever with sales of about 40 million worldwide. I have no source for this though, so maybe I'm mistaken, but I know for sure that selling a million copies of an album worldwide is definitely considered a success. So in general, I completely agree with you, but we should not overestimate the potential volume. |
Yes but we shouldn't under estimate it. Traditionally games needed like 10 hours. Games like Wii Sports, Nintendogs, and even Halo ask you to play in intervals of as little as 5 mins to an hour at a time. Not every game asks you to play continuously for an experience that is only complete after 30 hrs. Those are our hardcore games, btw. That's why the game industry is expanding because it's becoming more mainstream in the aspect that it's allowing people to get into it at their own pace. NOt simply saying here's an RPG or Zelda and have fun. People wonder why games like Wii Play, Nintendogs, and as I said even Halo sell so much. It's because it has that ability be a pick up and play title.
And yes cost is a problem, which I mentioned, but its something that is solved with expansion. As the userbase grows prices go down to appeal to that userbase more. Production values can also get higher. Less risk due to userbase size always allows more risk with pricing and production.
And as for the music industry it's still a lot larger than the game industry but I think Thriller came close to 80 million copies actually. Once again no source.
