EA: $60 games business still legitimate 'for now'

EA will continue to release full-priced boxed retail games while the business remains viable, but the publisher says consumers aren't flocking to retailers like GAME and GameStop as they once did.

According to Andrew Wilson, EA Sports' senior vice president of worldwide development, 45 percent of revenues made by games in 2010 were digital.

"People are no longer going into GameStop or GAME en masse and paying for content in a quantity," he said during a keynote speech at the Develop conference, MCV reports.

"There is still a business of $60 games sold at GAME and GameStop - that's still legitimate for now. I won't predict when that will die. I won't prophesise when games on discs will go away, because the reality is that as long as gamers continue to line up and buy them we will make them.

"But the amount of people on Facebook, on PSN and Xbox Live is growing," he added. "There is a shift here. If we don't get ahead of it, we will find ourselves in trouble. We have seen the Blockbusters and the HMVs change before our eyes. The corporate graveyard is littered with companies, mediums and entities that resisted where the consumer wanted to go."

In terms of game purchases, digital gamers have shot past the hardcore, according to research firm NPD, which said in June that the two types of consumers bought an average of 5.9 and 5.4 games in the previous three months respectively.

Analyst firm EEDAR has also found that Xbox 360 owners are the most active console digital game buyers.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...imate-for-now/