Oh noes !!! Could this be .... Recession? Or have consoles peaked?

"Even though the recession is technically over, lingering concerns are keeping consumers in a cautious frame of mind," said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst, The NPD Group, Inc. "We are seeing what I call 'calculated consumption.' and I believe that it is a consumer mind-set that will be around after holiday shopping is over."

Evidence of consumers' more thoughtful and cautious approach this holiday can be seen in the fact that 62 percent of consumers say they plan to do some kind of 'homework' prior to making a purchase. Almost 44 percent of consumers say they will comparison shop before they buy a gift. Thirty-seven percent say they will use ads or circulars to guide their gift shopping, and 33 percent say they will compare prices online before they shop in a store.

"What this means is consumers will be looking to find what to buy, when to buy, and where to buy before even leaving the house," said Cohen. "This eliminates the rushed decisions and can potentially eliminate some impulse purchasing from the holiday shopping equation."

"Again, this year the real challenge is the absence of newness and excitement," observed Cohen, "The more progressive brands will learn from mistakes of the recent past and ramp up the excitement in their product offerings. And in turn retailers will be looking for those products to ignite consumers' passion to spend this holiday."

http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_101007.html

Where does it specifically say consumers will spend less in Videogames. Not all games are impulse purchases.

This basically agrees with the feeling I've been getting.  We've had some slightly disappointing launches and it could be a trend.  The drop from 20% to 15% in the intention to buy VG consoles or games would be disturbing if everything else on the board wasn't down as well.   A recent forcast for Canada was saying they expect a 3 to 4% increase over the 'near disastrous'  2009 retail nos.  That's from memory not a direct quote and from the boob-tube.  I suspect the U.S. might have even less of an increase and the NRF is expecting just a 2.5% rise;

http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/06/news/economy/holiday_sales_forecast/index.htm. 

The kind of drops the NPD article is forcasting would be surprisingly bad.  No doubt some countries will be noticeably down. The vg sales nos. may be closer and more interesting this year but don't expect any records overall.