Video game sales slump in January

[Chippiewill]

Video game sales slumped in the US - their biggest market - in January.

NPD group said stores sold $1.14bn (£720m) worth of games over the month, down 34% on the previous year. It added that hardware sales were down 38%.

The consumer data provider linked the drop to a lack of major new releases.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16983122

I can't say I'm surprised all the triple-A titles came out on time this year (Unlike Portal 2, GTA IV etc.) so no big games would be released in January as there often are. However FF13-II came out recently so I suspect this month will be a bit more active. But also there was a massive push by a lot of industries to boost sales over Christmas so it's only natural that people would cut back more than usual after Christmas.

[dbgtz]

I think I bought 2 games in January last year, none this year. So yeah it is pretty much a lack of releases.

[Oleh]

I don't think theres any upper class games which got released in January, this is obviously going to happen.

[Chippiewill]

Just had a quick look, there's been 12 game releases in January, only one triple-A title (And FF13-II was released in NA on the 31st, hardly going to increase sales for the whole month), in February there are ~4x as many game releases (Although thirty of those are Vita launch titles). In fact we've already had more game releases so far this month than last month put together.

Compared to last year with:
- Dead Space 2
- Mass Effect 2
- Little Big Planet 2
- Magicka (!!!)

[Chris]

Cant think of anything decent at all which was released in January, shame.

[Chippiewill]

Cant think of anything decent at all which was released in January, shame.

Not a surprise, all the mainstream games (i.e. feature a console release, not an arcade game or DLC) were released right at the end of the month.

[Gibs960]

I bought 4 games in January this year and I think I bought one or two last year, but as said before the games came out either before Christmas or at the end of the month, nothing important in the middle really.