The latest reports are in and no surprise game sales in 2009 were off by around 2 billion. Rather than regurgitate the stats of said report lets think about think about this. The sales for last year come in at around $19 billion. Two billion down may seem like a big deal but guess what? Nineteen billion is still a lot of money. It’s always amazing to think that so many of these reports will look at this as a bad thing when in fact when you have an industry like ours that consistently performs well, even in a down economy. They use words like “plummeting” and “disappointing sales.”
Disappointing? How many people would complain if their business made that much in a recession? Sure the software and hardware isn’t selling as much but it doesn’t take a 20 page report to figure out why. Last year we had a truckload of peripheral games which by themselves cost at least half the price of a console. And as we’ve talked about before, the console makers are trying to make their machines go beyond that 5 year benchmark before breaking out some new gear. Also no surprise is that Nintendo continues to do well and make money in sales on the DS and the Wii — they’re the “everybody” consoles with games that anyone can play. The marvel and wonder from this report was that Activision jumped in at the end on the year and cleared more than 8 million units of Modern Warfare 2. One game can make a difference.
So with full year of blockbuster releases on the calendar and technology that we are all anxious to see revealed there’s a strong possibility that the industry as a while will do well this year.
While CES is dropping all the cool gadget geekery eye candy Microsoft and Sony are dropping news about things to come. This one though – The Xbox Live Game Room –will either be a huge success or a colossal failure.
Here’s the breakdown
Xbox live will have a new feature this spring called the Game Room — essentially it will create an arcade, 80s style, where you’ll have all the old cabinets from games like Centipede and Tempest (if you’ve never heard of these games well them you’re probably not gonna care about this) and you can then play them alone or online. You can buy the games for $5 for both your console and PC (or $3 separately) or play them arcade style for 50 cents until you lose (21st century inflation — the standard fare for these games originally was 25 cents)
You and all your avatar friends (minus the Naviim) can hang out in the virtual arcade playing games like you went into some time machine and have competitions and get achievements. Now in the real old arcade days often times you would have the one dude racking up a jillion points on the Asteroid machine while a crowd of folks gathered around. These machines for the most part were not so much multiplayer but at least you were in a room with a bunch of other kids with pockets full of quarters to waste.
Target Audience? Us Oldy McOldies who want to hearken back to the first golden age of gaming and the casual gaming market that can handle games that only require a button and a thumbstick. And of course the young whipper snappers who have never heard of these games but dig that whole “retro” thing. Certainly a multiplayer session of pac-man will pale in comparison to a Modern Warfare Ground War but then again, it’s a yellow circle eating dots.
Marketing Strategy: If they do it right they may garner success in the retro gaming market and with the causal gamers, parents and people who just like to keep things simple. Unfortunately this retro gaming wave crested a couple of years ago. Going for them is the fact that this games really are retro now as we’ve now entered a new decade leaving the remnants of gaming past in the shelled out game cabinets of Galaga and Street Fighter.
Price Points: The pricing is right, 5 bucks is certainly a deal these days and getting to play online with your buddies continues to give credence the always strong Xbox live market.
Question: With the mobile and portable gaming market doing so well (Iphones, Ipods, Zunes, the Sony thing and their ilk) why hasn’t Microsoft added another layer of accessibility through mobile media? Especially since according to the company they’re looking to have more than 1000 games in the next couple of years? No idea. Maybe they will. Perhaps they’ll have to see how well it does on the console PC split first.
Good Videogame Marketing? Maybe. Is this a too much too late or have they figured out a way to compartmentalize this genre to make it more accessible? Hard to say at this point but at least for now it seems like something they can definitely use to get more subscribers to Xbox Live. As to whether or not people in an age of draw dropping graphics and gameplay will want to shoot at pixelated mushrooms with a bug spray shooter — well that remains to be seen.
It’s official, the new Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time movie has a release date of May 28, 2010 and wouldn’t you know, it’s under the helm of captain action, Jerry Bruckheimer. Clearly looking to fill the void left behind and soured by the debacle that was the last Pirates movie, based on the trailer (see below) this looks to be an action sandwich made with action bread and washed down with a large class of … action.
Here’s what we know — the Prince now has a name (Daston), the girl is not from any of the games but at least she has a real English accent. By the way, if you can’t place the face on the poster, the prince is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, sporting a fake accent. Also lined up for this action epic are big shot thespians Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina and it’s directed by Harry Potter:Goblet of Fire and Young Indiana Jones director Mike Newell
Now before you look at the trailer let’s keep a few things in mind.
The game the movie is pulling it’s source material from a game that was a critical success and a fave of gamers. Released on the original Xbox, the storyline did include a dagger and a gameplay element that tied into the plot. The “sands of time” would allow you to manipulate time by slowing it down or rewinding slightly. In the game you had to go around collecting all the sand that had been released from this giant hourglass. The game, developed by Ubisoft Montreal was released … in 2003. It was a gorgeous display of the machine’s graphic capabilities and gave this prince some mad acrobatic skills that have been the staple of the series since then. And for you ultra trivia folks that Ubisoft game was a re-imagining of the PC classic franchise developed by Jordan Mechner.
Now back to the movie — from the looks of the trailer it looks …. fantastic. But we all know too well how this works. No matter how amazing the trailers for these videogame movies are when we finally get to the actual movie it falls apart like a bunch of Jenga blocks. For now, let’s enjoy the possibility that underneath this Prince of Persia trailer is a great videogame movie worthy of it’s console counterpart.
As promised here’s the follow up to last week’s first post featuring the sensation who loves Legos and classic videogames. In this video we get to see the Lego reproduction of some stellar titles like Dig Dug, Centipede and the one that started it all — pong. Enjoy.
