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Falling Game Sales Hit Amazon

Tom Ivan's picture

By Tom Ivan

July 27, 2009

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Online retailer Amazon.com posted a fall in second quarter profits on the back of a legal settlement and weakness in the videogames market.

While sales were up 14 per cent on the second quarter of 2008, profit fell ten per cent, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"You're seeing an industry slowdown in videogames and consoles," said the company’s chief financial officer, Tom Szkutak.

Amazon chief executive Jeffrey Bezos suggested that the company’s rising sales showed that its expansion strategy is paying dividends.

"We're staying heads down focused on providing customers low prices, vast selection, and fast delivery," he noted.

adkm1979's picture
On July 27th adkm1979 said:

@Rob_Jackson (below): While the release cycle for videogames will never make July one of the most exciting months, saying that there are no good new games just shows laziness. Equally, writing off all sequels as poor quality is a fool's errand. Besides, sequels sell by the truckload, so your point looks out of place below an article about sales. Perhaps amazon is suffering because in these hard times a lot of people simply don't have money for games. Forty quid is still forty quid no matter how much value it represents. If PSN is even showing half the ingenuity and quality of XBLA then amazon will also lose out to some very worthy DLC sales.

Rob's picture
On July 28th Rob said:

I don't believe he was writing off sequels as poor quality so much as he was saying that it lessens your options if you didn't like the original. And both of you are right about the price. New game prices are ridiculous and game rental prices are even more ridiculous. The most cost effective thing to do is wait til games drop, go on sale, or buy dlc.

Alex Walker's picture
On July 27th Alex Walker said:

I love you adkm.

To be honest, I haven't noticed a huge drop in game sales, more like hardware sales. Granted it's only one store, but new games, especially sequels are flying out of the door. Grand Slam Tennis, Tiger Woods 10 and Wii Sports Resort have done very well, and go back a bit further to see Ghostbusters and UFC doing brisk business.

Barla Von's picture
On July 27th Barla Von said:

This doesn't surprise me, games and consoles in general are too expensive. Plus, add to the fact that nobody wants to spend their money due to the recession and would rather keep it for more important things other than games.

Just wait til christmas time (Q4) when retailers will really feel the effects of consumers not buying games and other lifestyle products. This year will see one of the poorest consumer christmas spending sprees in history.

Rob_Jackson's picture
On July 27th Rob_Jackson said:

We are now getting deep into the 'what is wrong with this gen' curve; lack of product. In times of financial crisis, when cinema tickets cost more than the first computer games did, a new game represents good value. Trouble is, where are they? I have money to spare for a decent new game right now, but I see nothing worth buying. How many years into the 360 life cycle do we have to go to see either a rally game or something good that does not have a sequel number tacked on the box? The lack of product is eye wateringly bad.

[As a side note, I went through the accepting of new T&C and found this in the middle;

"In order to use the Website Service, you will require access to the world-wide web. You are responsible for any connection, service and other fees associated with such access and for providing all equipment necessary to enable you to connect to the world-wide web (including a computer and modem or other access device)."

Can I ask when Captain Obvious hung up his cape and got a law degree?