Analysts are blaming lower than expected game sales in September on the shrinking market for music games, reports Gamesindustry.biz. U.S. game sales for last month remained relatively flat despite hardware price cuts and high expectations for the first crop of big fall releases.
Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter blames higher forecasts for the month on the buzz generated by MTV Games and Activision for their music games. Pachter says the final tally for MTV’s Rock Band title were nearly half of the 1.3 million units his firm had forecast. Guitar Hero 5 similarly underperformed, and Pachter thinks that Activision’s music sales could be down as much as 25 percent compared to last year. Doug Creutz of Cowan and Company also blamed the music titles, as well as what he called disappointing sales for Microsoft’s Halo3: ODST. He anticipates a 2.8 percent fall in game sales this year compared to 2008.
Read more at Gamesindustry.biz.
