Hardware RRP dragging down market

With year-on-year comparison continuing to paint a picture of gradual decline in the home console games sector, analyst Cowen & Company has named the high RRP of console hardware as the chief cause.

We believe that the hardware manufacturers have left unit sales on the table by not reducing price points,” it stated in its Autumn Video Games Survey.

Doing so would have driven a more significant boost to hardware sales than the release of new motion-sensing peripherals. We view continued stubbornly high hardware price points as one of the key factors dragging down software sales.”

The report also claims that while interest in innovations such as Kinect and Move is high amongst the existing customer base, few who don’t already own a console are tempted to buy in for the first time following their launch.

However, in better news only five per cent of the 2,301 questioned for the report said that they had bought fewer console games as a result of increased time spent playing online titles or freely available social games.

It also found that 76 per cent had purchased some form of digital game content in the past year, with nearly 50 per cent having spent $20 or more.

The results do not change our view that high-quality games for the core gamer remain the best investment for video game publishers despite changes to the structure of the videogame industry,” the report added.