Screen Digest analyst Piers Harding-Rolls has chipped in with another set of predictions for the industry as a whole. In a break from the norm, he thinks Nintendo’s seemingly unshakeable Wii and DS platforms could be most at risk in the ferocious economic climate.
That’s all down to the Mario-maker’s choice of target audience, apparently, in what could be considered a fresh take on the casual-gamers-make-unreliable-consumers argument some Wii analysts espoused back in 2007.
"These new, non-enthusiast and more mainstream console gamers view many Wii and DS games as experimental and discretionary luxuries," Harding-Rolls told GamesIndustry.biz. "As the recession bites, Wii and DS games are likely to fall from the shopping lists of some of these consumers."
By contrast, Screen Digest believes so-called "core" gamers will remain "relatively resilient to an economic downturn" thanks to "few financial responsibilities" and "a higher disposable income." Despite this stable source of revenue, however, we’re likely to encounter "more risk-averse business practices" and fewer "new and original IP projects", EA’s recent decision to cut a number of upcoming games being a case in point.
More predictably, Harding-Rolls trotted out the one about PlayStation 3 pricing. "From a hardware perspective, Sony’s PS3 console is relatively exposed on price, which may prompt price-sensitive traditional gamers to delay adoption of the platform until we see a substantial price drop."