AUSTIN, Texas — Video games? Recession-proof? Says who?
Said me, last year. I used those exact words in an NPR interview last December. While the rest of the world seemed to be slipping into a recessionary hole, the video-game industry was still flying high in late 2008, with strong holiday sales and never-ending momentum for Nintendo's Wii console.
In fact, it seemed that the video-game industry was becoming the best entertainment bargain for people forced to stay at home and limit spending. You can spend 40 or 50 hours on a single video game, something that only the most obsessive watchers of DVD extras do with movies.
But the news has changed. The video-game industry has taken a hit this summer, specifically a 29 percent dip in hardware and software sales for July. What happened?
A lot of it, I think, has to do with the games themselves. Last summer, we had several huge blockbusters out on the shelves, including "Grand Theft Auto 4," "Metal Gear Solid 4," "Wii Fit," "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" (which turned out to be a disappointment), "Lego Indiana Jones" and "Spore," not to mention the usual suspects like "Madden" and "Tiger Woods PGA Tour."
This summer, the biggest hits have been Nintendo's "Wii Sports Resort," EA's "NCAA Football" and older Nintendo games still clinging to the sales charts like "Wii Fit" and "Mario Kart."
While there've been a few pleasant surprises like "Plants vs. Zombies," "Ghostbusters" and "Punch-Out!!" none of them was a giant blockbuster on the scale of what we saw in 2008. These are games that did well, but they don't seem to have helped hardware sales as big games did last year. Arguably the biggest game of the summer was "The Sims 3," but that game is limited to PCs. PC exclusives don't tend to sell as well as games that ship on a variety of game consoles.
More significantly, the Nintendo Wii is no longer selling like the hotcake console it was last year. It had a great run, but it's now easy to find the Wii on store shelves; demand has dipped significantly. Nintendo has the top-selling home and portable consoles of this video-game generation, and any hit it takes will affect the entire games industry.
And while music video games like "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero 4" have been the darlings of the games industry, they've been seeing sales dips, too. Interest in music games will no doubt be revived by "The Beatles: Rock Band," but I'm not sure they'll top that success anytime after that.
At this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, the biggest news was not big games due out in 2009, but new technologies for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 that will bring camera-based motion-controlled games. Target date? Mid- to late 2010. Those devices might change the landscape of gaming for home consoles when they arrive, but that's going to be a long wait.
But the news isn't all bad.
While the games industry has taken a summer beating, things are looking bright for the fall and holiday seasons. The PlayStation 3 just got a long-overdue $100 price cut and Microsoft followed suit last week with a new $299 price for its Xbox 360 Elite. (Don't expect a $199 Wii this holiday season; Nintendo is usually slow to embrace price changes on its consoles, especially when they lead the pack.)
"The Beatles: Rock Band," "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2," "Halo 3: ODST," "Assassin's Creed 2," a new 2-D "Super Mario Bros." game for the Wii, a Zelda game for the Nintendo DS and "Uncharted 2" are all going to be huge sellers, some across multiple consoles. "Madden NFL 10" is already out and "Batman: Arkham Asylum," which fills the void left by the lack of a "Dark Knight" game last year, hit stores last week.
Although "Bioshock 2" was pushed back to next year, there's still plenty to play later this year. There's a new "Left 4 Dead" game due out this holiday season, the much-anticipated rock-humor game "Brutal Legend," a big sci-fi massively multiplayer online game from NCSoft called "Aion" and "Champions Online," which went live this week.
Add to that a lot of smaller sleeper hits like the reboot of the LucasArts classic, "Monkey Island," which seems to be doing well on PCs and the Wii as a downloadable series of games.
Maybe people aren't buying as many game consoles as they did last year, but that's to be expected as the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii start to show a little age. It's not surprising that it always comes back to the games — if there aren't enough big AAA-list titles out there, console and software sales will flag. But if there's one thing we can count on during the holidays, it's that game publishers will put their best foot forward and flood the market with the most-anticipated titles.
Will it be enough to rebound the games industry? Maybe not all the way, but people who love video games won't be lacking options by the time we hit November and December.
Omar L. Gallaga writes for the Austin American-Statesman. E-mail: ogallaga(at)statesman.com.