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So far, the biggest surprise from Los Angeles is the failure to cut pricing on any hardware.
It’s a very curious decision, given how much the hardware line of business has been tanking of late. Granted, the last generation has gone on for arguably too long and there are suspicions of saturation or lack of interest in buying new Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 hardware, but deciding to keep pricing status quo and setting up a rather dry spring-summer period for sales seems misguided.
Consider that, aside from The Last of Us (which is a PS3 exclusive), there’s very little in terms of new software to potentially generate interest in new hardware sales. Without price cuts to promote interest in new (or even secondary) hardware purchases, there’s reason to believe that monthly retail sales per month between May and July could be 25% lower YOY or more. May, of course, will be the worst month with no games released in the reporting period to match Diablo III and Max Payne 3 last year. That fact, along with the continued plunge in the hardware sector, could very well spell one of the worst months to comp that we’ve seen in quite some time. Then we move through June and July with relative quiet before August debuts some Wii U games and Saints Row IV hits the market. Saints Row IV, if sales of the previous game in the series are any indication, should fare quite well and will likely debut at #1 for retail software sales that month. That number should eclipse what we saw for Darksiders II in the same period.
Leaving last-gen hardware behind, I’m also surprised to see no price movement from Sony on the Vita or from Nintendo on the Wii U. The Vita seems like the most egregious offender of price stagnation. Been the same price for over a year, sales are in the tank, and there’s not really any kind of impetus to get consumers to jump in. What exactly is Sony waiting for here? Is the company content to just let Vita rot on store shelves until the perk of remote play for the PlayStation 4 might sell a few units? Is the company conceding that it’s a flop and just riding it out? I don’t understand the strategy. I anticipated a drop to $200, and perhaps this will still come at some point. Until then, though, I don’t see much of a future at all– let alone a bright future– for Sony’s handheld.
A price cut for the Wii U would have been preferred, but isn’t as necessary as for the Vita. Price cuts tend to be an igniter for unit sales over a short period, and then game releases usually carry that sales trend. It’s understandable not to drop the price now for Nintendo, since Wii U games are still relatively scarce, but perhaps we see a price drop closer to September when the games finally do begin to arrive for the platform. While it would be nice to see one now and get Wii U unit sales closer to 100,000 per month, there’s no guarantee that this happens without games to support it.
Speaking of games, that’s what I’ll be seeing a lot of this week. What will sell? What won’t? I’ll answer these questions and share my hands-on impressions in the coming days.
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