MCV June 15th 2012

The Market For Computer & Video Games

EVERY BUYER  EVERY BRANCH  EVERY WEEK Issue 692 Friday June 15th 2012 £3.25 ‘Bored gamers need fresh ideas’ Market slump is caused by lack of innovation and overabundance of ‘me too’ games, says Ubisoft by Michael French

THE CURRENT downtown in the sales of boxed games has been caused by boring content and no innovation. That’s according to Ubisoft’s Alain Corre, who says the market is desperate for new ideas – and if it doesn’t get it, spending on video games will continue to fall. Currently, the UK games

market is down 33 per cent year-on-year.

That’s over £130m lost as consumers refuse to buy the sequels and identikit games that have made it to market this year.

“There have been too

many ‘me too’ games in the business in the last few years,” said Alain Corre, EMEA MD.

Ubisoft’s Alain Corre and Sony’s Andrew House says it is new IP such as Watch Dogs that can get the market growing again

“After a while people will

go ‘eh’ and move on. But give them something fresh and they’ll buy a console just for your game. “All the creators have to

take risks. So I was pleased to see that after the E3 presentations, there are a lot of new things on show.”

“ by Michael French

NINTENDO may not be prepared to talk about the Wii U price yet, but when it arrives later this year it will have a stronger day one offer than the 3DS launch, Nintendo UK boss David Yarnton told MCV.

“One of the problems with 3DS was content. When we launched we didn’t have the

IN THIS ISSUE

02 WONDERFUL IDEA Wonderbook is Sony’s main Q4 focus, and could even be sold in book shops.

06 E3 IN PICTURES MCVtakes a look back at E3, from the Xbox conference to the celebs on the show floor

08 GAMES OF THE SHOW We pick our favourite eight games that were on display at E3 this year

18 HOUSE PROUD SCE President and CEO Andrew House on Vita, PS4 and the PlayStation family

24 SOCIAL STANDING MCVinvestigates how to build communities using social media

content we do now, or the functionality for download games either. We do have

With appearances in all the major press conferences, plus a headline-grabbing debut for its new IP Watch Dogs, Ubisoft was singled out by many as the star of E3. And it’s strategy for offering fresh content has been praised from one of the most powerful people in video games – PlayStation president Andrew House. “Ubisoft has a genuine appetite for pursuing the new,” he told MCV.

Take a risk on your games and gamers will take a risk on you.

Wii U beats 3DS for day one value

that now, and did get there a few months after launch. “But with the Wii U, we had 23 games on show at E3, plus Netflix and Amazon and other services all hopefully for launch – it’s a great value proposition.” He explained that the firm

is “still not in the stage” to discuss pricing but said “we have a cost we have to hit to get our money back”.

“Our philosophies meld on this point, where we are are trying to deliver innovation at all points in the lifecycle.” Corre added: “You need to be unique, original and to surprise people – take a risk on your products and gamers will take a risk on you. Then the market can start growing again.”

UK games retail sales down 38% in May by Christopher Dring

THE TOUGHtimes continue for UK games retail, with the latest Chart-Track data showing the market fell 38 per cent last month. 1.8m games were sold in May, generating £45.5m. Both of those figures are almost 40 per cent down compared with the same period in 2011. For the third May in a

row, Rockstar was the top performer with Max Payne 3. However, the game has failed to match the numbers achieved by LA Noireor Red Dead Redemption. Diablo IIIwas the second best seller, which propelled Activision to No.1 in the publisher rankings by value.

Xbox holds firm on price by Michael French

“The success we enjoy

MICROSOFT’S comfortable lead over the competition means it’s not ready to cut Xbox prices yet. The firm went all out on current- gen demos at E3 last week – so no next-gen talk, and no price drop for 360.

year-on-year encourages us to think we’re competitively priced versus the competition,” Xbox Europe VP Chris Lewis told MCV. “We don’t chase cheap volume, and there’s no tolerance to be anything other than profitable. “We encourage the

flexibility retail can bring.”

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