Both analysts expect to see $472 to $475 million in retail sales -- about a 14 percent year-over-year drop -- when August NPD data is released later this week.
NPD sales figures will see yet another month of year-over-year declines in the U.S. retail console game market, according to estimates by Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter, but the analyst expects that the industry will see year-over-year growth starting in September through the remainder of 2009.
Video: In the Video market for example you cannot resell a purchased movie. Rental copies are purchased seperately and at greater cost and these can be sold on.
Digital: I think that retail offers one form of content with benefits such as physical media, digital offers others which might be cloud based such as the Onlive solution. They offer two different benefits but I do not see us always requiring physical copies as we become more accustomed cloud based solutions.
Cars in the US: I think the fact that fuel is so cheap and the country so large is probably the reason for high car ownership and a thriving second hand market. Also these items are very high value and cannot easily be scaled down to a video game purchase.
@welshbloke, If you go pure digital, you remove the "retained value" of purchased game, which help you buy that "brand new released game". Without second hand market, sales # of new game will go down, especially those new IP, and/or second class AA games.
The reason there are lots of cars in US is because they have thriving second hand car market. Without it, I am pretty sure that yearly new car purchase will go down, NOT go up.
For digital distribution, game price need to go down, to minimize customess "loss". IF new game is $50 for retail, with resell value of $15, digital distribution price need to be $35 ($50 - $15) or less, so the # of sales remain the same, or even increase.
For publisher, if we assume 30% retail associated cost vs MSRP, then selling DD game at $35 didn't reduce their profit.
"They need to model themselves more on the Video market where stores cannot resell full products." Are you talking about Video (VHS/DVD etc)? Why this happen in video market ? Is it because of law, or is it because the product itself is already very cheap, so second hand market is not as profitable as video games ?
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