The Japanese industry is doing very well. Almost all companies are profitable. This even despite the much smaller Japanese market.

I think the problem is that western companies are mis-identifying the very large market that the Japanese industry (namely Nintendo) has done so well with.

1. They make cheap feeling immitation games that aren't fun.
2. They mistake the so called "casual" market with the term "retard".
3. When they attempt to make a "hardcore" game, it ends up being some violent game that feels like it is trying REALLY hard to be badass. Rather than really mature.
4. Nintendo makes games that are what people like, other companies make games that they feel other people should like.

I personally like this qoute:

"Companies need to stop forcing industry standards and allow the market to set standards for itself."

So is it safe for me to say that we can blame Nintendo for forcing motion controls on the industry when its obvious that the industry couldnt handle it? The industry nor the market was asking for motion controls during the last gen.

??? It seems to me that it's the opposite. It's unsustainable for the current ammount of companies and HD games to be made, especially at this economic period. The HD companies were trying to set a standard, and it's way too fucking high.

Not that it was a bad thing for consumers, and I'm gonna be sad when we're going to see EA go back to their old roots.

Yeah but wasnt that what was happening in the industry last gen?  Everything was becoming better graphics, bigger games, online gaming......   So it was the "HD" companies fault for taking the next step?

Even Nintendo was apart of that having a very capable console last gen producing beautiful games.  But they moved away from what everyone else was doing with the Wii. 

Gaming Industry is bigger then Movie Industry so it should be ok that the costs are equal. Some Blockbuster between 50-100 Million Standard games 15-30 Million SD games 5-15 Million and Wii ware Iphone PSN Xbox Live games 500k-2 Million.

I think thats ok. the drop off was there but the US had big problems because of the recession. So a drop off was unevitable. And thats just the US not even the half of the whole market. Are there numbers for the development world wide for 2009 ?

Its ok like it is today. Some Companys struggle but thats nothing new its always like this in every area of the economy. Some Companys lose some win.

Its good that the companys have to be more careful with their developments thats why the games have some minimum qualiity. Nobody would release a game for 20 Mln without doing the best.


Everything is domed always. Thats not a novelty. People always thought they will withness the apocalypse. This inner fear is now there at every possible level. This Company is domed the Youth is domed the state is domed the economy is domed the weather is domed the atmosphere is domed the western states are domed car manufacturors are domed manner are domed the language is domed Japan is domed Europe is domed USA is domed.

Nothing special will happen the industry will live and grow as long as it can offer new values and with new visual technologys and with new interfaces the market is going to be even bigger.

We will see companys which go down some big players will die some others will become even bigger.

The market will be different. Videogames have evolved there are different levels of development. A Snes game was about 250-500k a PS1 game was 1-2 Million a PS2 game was 5-10 Million. And PS3 games are 15-30 Million nothing special happened the costs grew with the size of the market. But the sales grew signifiantly. Its now at the level that HD games can be developed just from the bigger companys. And the small ones have to do PSN/Live games or handheld/wii games. It is a giant risk and nobody is allowed to fail. If he dont have the money but thats exactly what happened in hollywood.

The budgets are getting bigger and bigger. But is the movie industry domed ? Yes of course everything is domed.

This graph excludes:

1) The subscription to all MMOS and Xbox Live fees.  (WoW alone is well over $1B anually in subscription fees)
2) All WiiWare, Steam, XBLA, PSN, games
3) all DLC or paid content for games (Activision will probably get $100m+  for MW2 DLC alone in 2010)
4. Non tradition gaming revenue from sources like the Apple App store and web games (Facebook etc)

So every revenue source that is growing is not included in these numbers.  And a lot of this growth comes at the expense of retail sales.

Ah. If you add 10% to 2009's retail cume, then you get a number higher than last year.

NPD does not cover:

• Digital Retail Sales (Steam which grew 100% in 2009, D2D, GOG.com, XBLA which grew 40%, ect)
• Subscriptions (World of Warcraft generates about ~3-4 million monthly subscriptions at >$10 each in the US. That is one game subscription. Lets not forget other subscriptions like live)
• Browser based games (Facebook games ring a bell? NPD doesn't valuate the 75 million users that played farmville last month. Using industry RPU averages, even on the low end, Farmville grossed about $25 million USD in December. Thats one game. ONE game.)
• Mobile phone gaming. The mobile industry was worth $4.5 billion in 2008. That was before the iPhone started selling games in droves. Most likely, the mobile gaming market increased to between $5.0 and $6.0 billion.

You add ALL the areas NPD doesn't track, and I would venture to argue that DD gaming made up for most, if not all, reductions in US gaming revenue.

Maybe some people don't want Wiis or 360 video games because they're too busy playing on other formats?

You've mistaken what the graph is saying. He's not saying sales are shrinking, he's saying that 2008 and 2009 have been the two highest years of all time for revenue. And that's even without what you mention. He's talking about why so many devs are shutting down and laying people off in what is clearly a golden age of game sales. I mean look at those numbers! Revenue is almost twice what it was 4 years ago! How on earth does an industry double it's revenue AND shed thousands of jobs at the exact same time!?

Didn't see your post, but PLUS ONE FOR YOU NICE FELLA!