I think until the main SKUs for the 360 and PS3 reach $199 that a lot of franchises will be on the decline. Nintendo basically soaks up a lot of game sales/dollars on the Wii (there are a few third party success stories but they're few and far between compared to say the PS2 and 360) so the success of that console basically has no impact on helping the success of many of the games mentioned (especially EA's team sports games).

Um, I can argue that.

John Lucas 

Good middle of the road titles are innovative ideas that don't have AAA budgets. What we are seeing on the market is more clones of AAA's then innovative ideas for the middle of the road.

On the sports side, I think that the decline is more related to a saturated market... Year after year a new sports title comes out that are only incremently better. And year after year we expect it to sell more... Eventually, it doesn't and people wonder why... EA & 2K may be better off to once every two or three years make a new release, and sell "roster" updates at a lesser price inbetween. That way they could couple a lot more incremental changes in each release and maybe some substantial ones that they would not have on a yearly cycle.

Also, the pricing strategy is flawed. If you are unsure whether to buy a title or not people usually wait... Why? Because if you wait out the publisher they will drop the price to a reasonable level (or get it used) so that you know it will be worth the money. How can Halo 3, Ratchet & Clank ToD, & Super Mario Galaxy be priced the same as Hour of Victory, Lair, and Far Cry Vengence on Wii when they come out?

Bottom line is that great, innovative, games will almost always do good with only a few exceptions...

I did some work for a major music publisher a few years back... Do you realize in music that only 1 out of every 43 artists that are signed to major album contract will actually make money? And that one makes enough money to pay for the other 42 that didn't... The gaming industry is headed in the same direction. Very few of a publisher's games will actually make money going forward... But, the games like BioShock, Super Mario Galaxy, Halo, Unreal Tournament, Ratchet & Clank, etc. will make enough to cover others.

Yeah, I definitely agree.

Part of the problem as well, is there used to be significant improvements between versions for games like Madden - multiplayer, online, much better gfx, etc.

Now so much goes into "general" production, its like they have 10% of their dev time to actually WORK on the game - and the rest to just redo the HUD, team lists, tweak a few things... and refresh.

And they have added just about everything that is possible to the game that could be. So what is left to do?

That's also why I am so puzzled that Madden seems to be getting MORE buggy in recent years. I wonder if its a deliberate ploy? People play it, notice the bugs - and think "Next years version will be better". Sort of reminds me of Windows (at least a while back).

...

This year they get a full year to really work on and polish everything - in all their sports titles. In many ways, '08 may be the make or break year for EA. I wonder if a 2-year dev cycle for their sports games would help - or alternate teams, like with the CoD developers?

I agree - but look what happened to the music industry.

The Internet took over.

There is too much FAT in the games industry - and digital distribution is the only real way to go, to ensure that more consumer dollars actually end up in the hands of developers. Leading to much lower prices, far greater unit sales, etc.

Cut the retailers, distributors, marketers, manufacturers (etc) all out of the picture. The big AAA titles can land on the shelves - and this benefits them as well, as they get more shelf space, and less competition.

...

One of the things I have noticed with my buying behaviour, is when prices get low enough - I not only buy more copies than I would at a higher price (no surprise there), I actually spend more revenue in total - and am happy to do it.

I imagine I could spend 50% of my yearly gaming dollars on digital downloaded titles - to cover 90% of my total (unit) purchases. Then spend the other 50% on a few AAA titles, that are worth buying in the shops. 

I don't know why, but I suddenly thought of PACMAN while reading this.

The music companies spent a lot of time figuring out how to rationalize this for the modern digital distribution age...  Now, unless they know that someone will be a hit, they only sign them to very short term, higher percentage of total sales contracts.  They still have the same fail rates but the bet is hedged a lot more.  Essentially, passing more risk to the artist because if they bomb they don't get the money and their contract is over.

Games will and are going more in that direction, and you are already seeing it with the Bioware/Pandemic and Bizzare buy out...  Good studios will get security and commitment from publishers.  Middle studios will get one contract at a time.  The exception is Bungie... They are sort of doing a Prince type move...

@Legend: Maybe so, but you are meaning the "casual" games mostly.
The few 3rd party successes are the few games, in which have been put at least some effot and been built for Wii from ground-up. Publishers complain about their quick cash-ins and cheap ports (from old games) not selling. If we compare to PS2, a million seller on PS2 is similar success than 100k selling game on Wii (or 360) ATM. 360 sells good only on one continent, so a game designed for NA market, can sell a lot better, than similar game for Wii, which userbase is more "healthier" when compared between the 3 main market areas.

 This reminded me of something????  Why isn't VGChartz.com keeping up on game sales on the PC???