You may have seen the report from US researchers that argued only 4% of games that made a profit. Apparently this was a misquote and the figure is closer to a still-worryingly-low 20%. Confused? You will be. So what do we learn from the Forbes article?
Top level in the US the average Xbox game sells 216,000 compared to 192,256 (!) on the PS3. Pretty close really, and likely to get closer in 2009. But the most interesting figures are related to new features and how they add to the sales total. Apparently the addition of a cooperative mode boosts sales by 12,400 copies, while a competitive mode bumps sales by nearly 25,000. You can argue over this - Call of Duty World at War is just one example of competitive multiplayer mode being a HUGE driver for sales, certainly way more than 25k – but it's the specifics that worry me. For me co-op is key to most of the interesting things happening in gaming. But if it supposedly only adds 12400 sales - or thereabouts - then you can see why some publishers may not to bother. Anyone else worried about this? It could just be me.
