Quote:
Originally Posted by Baron Munchausen
...says that consumers have been looking at console games and saying, 'This is too expensive and there are too many choices.'...
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"Too mant choices", read: "Supply/Demand is imbalanced".
What it comes down to, there are a relatively finite amount of dollars available from consumers. As in any market, once you hit a particular saturation point, you are not increasing sales - only increasing competition for the existing sales. We have an "industry" run by media giants who will pump out 100 titles in a given genre, all basically the same, all with fundamental and deeply grievous flaws. Yet, they could produce 10 titles that were all finely polished, and all excellent games that will be talked about for years - and make the same total number of sales.
There are more gamers than ever, purchasing more games than ever. But the "game industry" today, is like someone bringing 50 cakes to a party with 30 people, and wondering why cake just isn't selling like it used to.
I, for one, have long dealt with the double dilemma of the profusion of (mostly shoddy) titles, and my meager entertainment fund - by purchasing used games for 10-20$. This gives me the luxury to mostly see which ones suck, as well as allowing me to purchase many times as many titles as I could otherwise afford. Many people out there come up with creative ways to deal with it, but the fact is, they still spend as much money on games as they can/will, and even though they get more games, they are less satisfied with their gaming experience than "the good old days".
We need a new paradigm, but things will have to get much much worse before we're able to support a better system than direct retail.