Pre-owned blamed for market decline

The growing trade in pre-owned games is the driving force behind the High Street’s struggle to combat year-on-year declines in video games sales, according to a report by analyst group Cowen and Company.
The study compares the current hardware userbase of the PS3 and Xbox 360, which it claims at this moment in time is comparable to how PS2 and Xbox stood in 2003. However, current software sales for the two next-gen machines are around 20 per cent down on what they were for PS2 and Xbox, standing at 106m and 85.5m respectively.
The report adds that sales of games in their second month of availability are also down. Since 2001 they have on average fallen by 62 per cent. Examples cited include Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIII, which saw sales drop 93 per cent in its second month compared to the first.
The second hand games market is more fearsome now than it ever has been. A decade ago the only outlets for second hand games was High Street specialists and the then burgeoning number of UK indies.
Now, all manner of retailers are getting in on the act including HMV, Tesco, Asda and Best Buy, as well as US chains Toys R Us, Amazon, Wal-Mart and 7-Eleven.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/39761/Pre-...market-decline

GOOD.

hopefully they'll walk away from the decline with a new lesson. LOWER THE DAMN PRICES

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sterist

GOOD.

hopefully they'll walk away from the decline with a new lesson. LOWER THE DAMN PRICES

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I wish they would understand this, but I am quite sure they will find other ways. Monopolistic digital distribution seems to be the way they have chosen. 10$ dollar initiative, games where 50% are downloadable DLC only available through purchase from central servers etc. Bad times ahead.

What they don't understand is that a cheap pre-owned copy of a good game can get people into their series.

For example, let's say someone buys Call of Duty 4 pre-owned. If they have a truly enjoyable experience, then they may eventually go out and buy World at War and Modern Warfare 2 new.

If the major stores are taking on the selling of pre-owned titles, they should at least branch some of the profit back to the developers... Although personally, I think the developers are getting greedy and want to get paid multiple times for the same title.

I believe that a bad game, purchased pre-owned can see upto four owners within a span of two to three years. Which in theory, is not good.

The poor global economy over the last several years had nothing to do with the slight dip in sales. :rolleyes:

Whatever the state of the games industry the fact is i'm not running a charity for them, so i expect to buy a game as cheap as possible then sell it and get some money back but they expect us to just give up thousands of years worth of bartering based economy for their worthless digital content.

consumers are getting very very very sick of hearing rich yuppy people whine about how bad they have it.

greedy fockers are greedy fockers ladies and gentlemen, so yeah digital distro hurts the consumer, as does lameshop stores reselling hurting the developer. obvious who the problem is. and it's not the consumer;) yet the consumer gets screwed because two greedy scumbag corporation types wanna fight.:confused:

just my lil rant :p

love and peace yall!:thumbup: