How is it unfounded? The increases are shrinking each year and year four to six of the cycle is traditionally the peak. You can't just look at big hits and say they can do it again - people get sick of the same stuff and it takes new hits to maintain or exceed those real big years.
As for Ubisoft, they had sold 20m DS games in 2008. Which is what I'm talking about - Assassin's Creed isn't responsible for the peak alone - you need hits from unexpected places and you just don't see that with most publishers right now.
I don't know why you guys are so resistant to the idea that this is the peak - in 2006 / 2007, the HD SW market was something like 50m / 100m and now its 260m - 290m, three games per user, for 94m HD users if you annualize it for 2010. The issue is once you get below three games per user, the purchasing rates drop off pretty quickly. After this fiscal year (year to March 2011) HD purchasing rates could easily fall to 1.7 to 2.3 games per user in the year to March 2012, as that is how all historical consoles have trended once purchasing rates per year dropped below 3 games per user. If you figure 120m HD users at the end of 2011, then you'd expect 250m games purchased. Not a huge drop, but a solid 10% fall off. As hw really slows after that, the drops will be 25% per year.
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When there are more laws, there are more criminals.
- Lao Tzu
