NPD August 2011

[Archgamer]

Definitely. I think it's pretty strange they stayed at $299 for so long if they were only gonna cut the price by $50. A $100 price cut would have had a far more dramatic effect.

Well if the PS3 is going to be 10 years in the market, then small price cuts at this point would give it more leverage to work with towards the later years. Technically the PS3 isn't even 5 years old yet.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

the top10 of games seems pretty crappy

Consumer confidence in the US is at an all time low, so it's not surprising that software sales were so low.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this Holiday season is going to be the worst in well over a decade for consumer spending in the US.

Regards,
SB

 

[Brad Grenz]

Well if the PS3 is going to be 10 years in the market, then small price cuts at this point would give it more leverage to work with towards the later years. Technically the PS3 isn't even 5 years old yet.

Yeah, but it seems like they could have sat on $199 for the next 3 years. But they're gonna have to drop the price again in a year at $250. Maybe they want to have more chances for marketing bumps with more regular price drops, but it's hard not to think being a best in class value right now would have been more impactful in both the short term and long run than having people see "oh, it's a little cheaper now" twice.

 

[boommoob1]

Yeah, but it seems like they could have sat on $199 for the next 3 years. But they're gonna have to drop the price again in a year at $250. Maybe they want to have more chances for marketing bumps with more regular price drops, but it's hard not to think being a best in class value right now would have been more impactful in both the short term and long run than having people see "oh, it's a little cheaper now" twice.

I'd imagine Stringer didnt want 4 consecutive years of losses.

 

[Nesh]

Sony's price cut effect shouldnt be judged based only on the US market results.
We have to see if and how the decision affected the sales in the other markets as well. The overall result may be positive

 

[Rangers]

Seems like poor price cut effects for PS3 and especially 3DS to me. 3DS price cut had nice effect in Japan, not so well here.

At least I noticed PS3 has the least YoY decline.

Software, poor again. I'm not so doom and gloomy though, there wasn't much releases again. The holiday season will be big because that's where the big titles are, and dare I say this holiday titles might be the biggest of this generation yet imo, after a couple past weak holidays (again imo). Take it from NPD:

Despite the bad news, and a year-to-date revenue decline of 5 percent, the NPD Group still projects that the overall U.S. retail games industry may end the year flat.

"More than half of industry sales in this channel are still to be realized in the back four months of the year," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

"Given the strong release schedule in the coming months, new physical retail sales could still be flat to slightly up once full year sales are tallied."

Flat in "new physical retail", then add some gains for digital and despite all the gloom the year may be positive.

 

[AlphaWolf]

it's hard to compare this August to past as the lack of Madden is going to have had a significant impact.