It seems another type of drought is hitting the country this summer. GameSpot reports terrible news is in store this Thursday for the gaming industry when the NDP Group releases data for video game sales for the month of June.
The NPD Group is expected to release its US gaming retail sales data for the month of June on Thursday, and Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter expects the news to be bad. Pachter today sent a note to investors saying he expects US software sales to total just $305 million, down 34 percent from June 2011.Pachter blames the crappy sales on a “lackluster release lineup,” and I have to agree with that. Pokemon Conquest and Lego Batman were named as the month’stop games in terms of sales, which is kind of sad. I love Pokemon, but is it really that popular that it deserves to be at the top of the charts? Apparently it is. Never underestimate Pokemon fans!
I expected the releases of Diablo 3, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, and Max Payne 3 to boost the persistent slump, but none were able to make the difference. Max Payne is said to have underperformed though, and Diablo 3 was released to early in May to have a big enough impact to help. Future Soldier is noted to be ranked pretty high up on the charts. Believe it or not, there hasn’t been a positive sales month since November when Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 broke records.
Pachter had some sobering words for the industry, and singled out Activision, EA, and THQ for a particularly scathing comments.
“In this unprecedented eighth year of the console cycle, we believe there are few new intellectual properties to reinvigorate interest in the games sector,” Pachter wrote. “Consumers have been offered a never-ending series of sequels, and have been offered fewer choices each year for the last several years, with the result being waning interest in new software purchases and an unprecedented three years of software sales declines. The poster children for limiting consumer choice are Activision, Electronic Arts and THQ, with each company offering 50 percent as many titles as they offered several years ago, with only one new intellectual property launched among the three companies over the last year.”Ouch.
