Analysts expect game industry to grow 20 percent or more for August

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Video game analysts are paid to not only bring their knowledge and expertise about the industry and it’s sales to us, but also to make predictions about how the industry will fair in the future. Generally this results in disagreements between the four prominent industry analysts, but not so this time.

The NPD Group is expected to release their US retail video game sales for August on Thursday, and the analysts have all pretty much predicted the same results in their investors notes.

Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets’ and Evan Wilson of Pacific Crest Securities’ both expect 20 percent growth in video game software sales for the month, while Jesse Divnich of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research put the uptick at 21 percent. Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities’ was the most bullish of the group, suggesting game sales would jump 23 percent. Given last August’s $488 million in software sales, those predictions would put the expected software tally between $585 million and just over $600 million.

They also all mentioned the explosive growth of last year’s September-through-December period, and all of them noted that it would be more difficult for the industry to post the same kind of year-over-year software sales jumps that have been seen thus far in 2008. Wilson suggested that in September at least, that could be offset for retailers by a strong slate of PC releases including Spore, Crysis Warhead, Warhammer Online, and Civilization: Colonization. However, he also noted that monthly NPD numbers don’t include PC game sales.

As for the month’s biggest release, Electronic Arts’ Madden NFL 09, all four indicated that this year’s installment of the football franchise has been stopped for little or no gain. According to their own checks, sales of the game were about the same as Madden NFL 08, leaving EA to rely on Rock Band and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 to drive sales growth for the month.