Ryu wrote:As for July being a slow month, is it slow for any particular reason? I could at least see portable game sales go up during that month due to vacationing. I can see why sales are down---no one releases anything, but that's fine for those of us with shelved games that either need to be finished or haven't yet been started.
I think it's just the traditional mentality of the U.S. entertainment industry surrounding perceived summer behavior. Marketers don't want to risk pushing a product to consumers who aren't going to be around to hear about it.
I really don't see why they don't evolve past this delusion. With the internet and cell phones, there's no reason why marketers shouldn't be able to reach their target consumers anytime of year, and the benefit of releasing titles into a deserted marketplace is just waiting to be capitalized on. Over the course of many summers, I've continually seen bored gamers heading to stores looking for something new to play only to leave empty handed.
I can't believe that the major game companies aren't aware of this phenomenon, so I can only assume that there's some cost/benefit analysis going on that determines that the risk of a title not taking off immediately isn't worth the potential forgone sales. I think this is short-sighted, but I can sort of understand since most games have tragically short lifespans (if they don't sell at release they're usually done for).