Analysts expect July video game sales to decline for the fifth consecutive month

According to foreign media reports, Michael Pachel, a video game analyst at Wedbush Morgan, a market research firm, reported in Monday that the market research institute NPD will announce the July video game sales figures in Thursday, Beijing time August 11.　　Sales are expected to decline for the fifth consecutive month. Pachel expects the NPD report to show July video game sales of about $500 million trillion, down 16% from $592 million a year earlier, with 15 sales of video games exceeding 100,000, less than 18 in the same period last year; expected from the new gaming platform (PSP and Nintendo DS, etc.)　　Sales will be $475 million trillion, and the fall in sales from the previous generation of gaming machines is another reason for overall sales decline. Pachel also predicted that the July Wii game machine sales will be 305,000 units, Xbox19 million, PlayStation 3 135,000 units, which means July game sales fell 36% Year-on-year, the end of July this year, down 22%. Based on this, Pachel predicts that Sony will take a price cut before October, and Microsoft may respond after assessing consumers ' response to Sony's new pricing.　　In addition, the Wii will no doubt reduce the price of Nintendo's game because its sales are lagging behind competing products. Pachel expects the highest-selling video game company in July to be EA,　　125 million dollars, followed by Nintendo, 95 million dollars, again for dynamic Blizzard, 75 million dollars, thq,3000 million dollars, Ubisoft software, 18 million dollars, take-two,1600 million dollars, majesco,500 million dollars, midway,300 million dollars. The eight companies are expected to have total sales of $367 million, down 15% from $436 million a year earlier. Video game software sales have fallen 12% per cent so far this year, up 26% in the same period last year.　　Pachel points out that the decline in video game sales is due to the weak economy, the 2009-year current product mix is far less than the same period last year, the seasonal increase in Wii sales and Sony's insistence on PlayStation 3 's higher pricing. Pachel also forecast the price of various game consoles for 2010 years, saying that the 80GB PlayStation 3 price will be reduced from 400 U.S. dollars to 250 U.S. dollars, 120GB version of PS3 Slim will be 300 U.S. dollars, 60GB version of the Xbox 360 Pro from 300 dollars to 200 U.S. dollars, 120GB version of the Xbox 360 Elite for 250 U.S. dollars, Nintendo DS from 130 dollars to 100 U.S. dollars, Nintendo DSi from 170 dollars to 150 U.S. dollars, PSP from 170 U.S. dollars to 130 dollars; PSP　　The go dropped from 250 dollars to 200 dollars. Pachel predicts that video game software sales will resume growth in August 2009, with an expected increase of 30% and possibly a higher September increase. (Tangfeng)