December 2009 NPD releases today

Today NPD releases December 2009 US video game retail sales numbers, completing 2009's full year of sales data. By now it is clear that sales for the year will be down from 2008, but by exactly how much won't be known until the data releases. Predictions for the year-over-year decline are around 10% to as much as 15%. Whatever the numbers, it's fairly clear what's to blame, though the quantifiable impact of each of these may be a bit elusive and they are highly related to one another:

1) Recession. (It' the economy, stupid!)
2) Saturation of guitar controllers. This leads to sales revenue erosion as consumers opted for cheaper disk only versions of new music games and less of the big bundles. And music game sales at retail are down in general...
3) Slowdown in Wii sales compared to 2008. Another price cut is needed as the Wii sold like gangbusters to traditionally non-gaming consumers/households, pushed to the saturation point of this more casual market at $249 and then $199 price points. It has to cut again in 2010 to expand further.
4) Slowdown in infamous casual games. To some degree this means music games, however many traditionally core games buy and love music games, too. It's just that the traditionally casual consumer bought less of things like Ubisoft's Imagine brand and My Coach series and the pleathora of party games on the Wii...or much of anything else that wasn't Nintendo published.

Also, I have made some forecasts for a few Xbox 360 titles that launched in Dec 2009. This month I won't be releasing those forecast here (they are actually appearing somewhere else) but let's just say that I am expecting James Cameron's Avatar: The Game to have sold very poorly for being based on what will likely become the new king of global box office ticket sales. The game received mediocre reviews, and this is a real missed opporunity for Ubisoft. Personally I have seen the movie twice and will probably see it a 3rd time this weekend. It actually made me excited to play the game until I watched video reviews and talked to some people who hated the game despite loving the film.