Kathleen Byrnes and Justin Choi, a married couple attending medical school at Tulane University, say US$40 is just too much to fork over for a Nintendo Wii game they might not enjoy. They haven’t bought one since last fall, when they picked up Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
Since then?
“Nothing really interesting came out,” said Byrnes, 23.
PHOTO: AP
Their reluctance helps explain why this is a rough summer for the video game business. More people than ever are playing the games, but it’s been a while since a blockbuster title arrived. Consumers are watching their money more closely in the recession and managing to resist games that can cost as much as US$60.
The trends came into play last week as Sony Corp and Nintendo Co each reported console sales are dropping. Sony posted a loss for the April-June quarter, while Nintendo Co revealed a large drop in its profit.
The Microsoft Corp division that makes the Xbox 360 said last month it lost money in the last quarter too.
“The health of the industry is terrible,” Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said.
For gamers, at least, there’s some good news: Console prices will probably come down.
Sony’s PlayStation 3, the costliest of the bunch, still sells for US$400. Nintendo hasn’t lowered the US$250 tag on the Wii since its 2006 launch — an extreme rarity for an industry that relies on regular price cuts to broaden its audience.
Despite the bad earnings results, Sony and Nintendo both reaffirmed their forecasts for the year. Pachter said each company “has no prayer” of meeting the target without cutting prices.
For Nintendo, that might mean keeping the Wii at US$250 but including more free games.
At first, it didn’t seem the recession would be big trouble for the video game business, which has managed to expand its audience in recent years and become a mainstream form of entertainment. By many estimates, the video game industry is now larger than the music business.
Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, as well as software publishers like Electronic Arts Inc and retailers like GameStop Corp, have pitched video games as cheap entertainment. Players can get many more hours in front of a TV screen from a US$60 video game than from a US$25 DVD.
But people squeezed by the economy may not have even that to spend. Many have turned to online games that are cheaper or free.
Even loyal, “hardcore” gamers are being more selective instead of lining up to buy every new release, and many are trading used games among themselves.
They’re also waiting for bigger, better titles coming later in the year — in the holiday season, when video game companies often roll out their biggest blockbusters. With many players now expecting something close to movie quality in their games, these titles can take years and tens of millions of dollars to develop.
When the spring of last year brought massive hits like Grand Theft Auto IV and the exercise game Wii Fit, that was an exception.
Grand Theft Auto IV raked in more than US$500 million in its first week in stores.
Last year’s big spring would have made for tough comparisons this year even in normal circumstances. But by industry standards, the first half of this year has been unusually slow when it comes to top-flight game launches. Combine that with the recession, and you get one chilly summer.
Ben Nielsen, a 29-year-old architectural designer in Portland, Oregon, usually buys three or four games a year. This year he’s gotten only one: Mirror’s Edge for the Xbox 360. And that’s only because it was on sale for US$30.
Byrnes and Choi might spring for the US$50 Wii Sports Resort, a recently launched follow to the Wii Sports game that comes with the Wii and buoyed its popularity. Wii Sports Resort also comes with an accessory that attaches to the Wii’s controller to make it more sensitive.
But they remain cautious. They own seven games for their Wii, and say they were disappointed with about half of them.
“With that kind of a track record, we are not about to take more chances on future titles,” 25-year-old Choi said.
SECURITY: As China is ‘reshaping’ Hong Kong’s population, Taiwan must raise the eligibility threshold for applications from Hong Kongers, Chiu Chui-cheng said When Hong Kong and Macau citizens apply for residency in Taiwan, it would be under a new category that includes a “national security observation period,” Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. President William Lai (賴清德) on March 13 announced 17 strategies to counter China’s aggression toward Taiwan, including incorporating national security considerations into the review process for residency applications from Hong Kong and Macau citizens. The situation in Hong Kong is constantly changing, Chiu said to media yesterday on the sidelines of the Taipei Technology Run hosted by the Taipei Neihu Technology Park Development Association. With
A US Marine Corps regiment equipped with Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) is set to participate in the upcoming Balikatan 25 exercise in the Luzon Strait, marking the system’s first-ever deployment in the Philippines. US and Philippine officials have separately confirmed that the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) — the mobile launch platform for the Naval Strike Missile — would take part in the joint exercise. The missiles are being deployed to “a strategic first island chain chokepoint” in the waters between Taiwan proper and the Philippines, US-based Naval News reported. “The Luzon Strait and Bashi Channel represent a critical access
‘FORM OF PROTEST’: The German Institute Taipei said it was ‘shocked’ to see Nazi symbolism used in connection with political aims as it condemned the incident Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), who led efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), was released on bail of NT$80,000 yesterday amid an outcry over a Nazi armband he wore to questioning the night before. Sung arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning in a recall petition forgery case on Tuesday night wearing a red armband bearing a swastika, carrying a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and giving a Nazi salute. Sung left the building at 1:15am without the armband and apparently covering the book with a coat. This is a serious international scandal and Chinese
COUNTERINTELLIGENCE TRAINING: The ministry said 87.5 percent of the apprehended Chinese agents were reported by service members they tried to lure into becoming spies Taiwanese organized crime, illegal money lenders, temples and civic groups are complicit in Beijing’s infiltration of the armed forces, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said in a report yesterday. Retired service members who had been turned to Beijing’s cause mainly relied on those channels to infiltrate the Taiwanese military, according to the report to be submitted to lawmakers ahead of tomorrow’s hearing on Chinese espionage in the military. Chinese intelligence typically used blackmail, Internet-based communications, bribery or debts to loan sharks to leverage active service personnel to do its bidding, it said. China’s main goals are to collect intelligence, and develop a
RSS