Tag Archives: Pacific Crest Securities

Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson has predicted that packaged games will maintain flatness in 2010 while the industry as a whole will show growth of 6 percent.

Wilson claims this is partly due to a 34 percent surge in digital sales.

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Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson expects says that he recession may be hitting games harder than financial gurus and chart trackers previously thought.

In his NPD preview note to investors, Wilson estimates software sales for June have dropped 20 percent year-over-year to $700 million.

“Our most recent checks have indicated that the relative health that we have seen may not have continued into June,” he wrote. “Our contacts indicate that sales in the important ‘school’s out’ period, especially in the last two weeks of June, were disappointing and represented a deviation in the early-year trend.

“While it is too early to call a long-term trend, we have taken a more conservative view of new and catalog products in our June NPD forecast. If the data back up our checks, it may be time to reassess the degree to which videogames really are ‘recession proof.’”

Wilson said that the expected slide can be attributed to the less-than-warm reception of big releases and “slipping consumer confidence”.

More through Gamespot.

Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson has pointed to 2010 being a major year in the games trade’s cycle, with his company expecting a new console from Microsoft and the end of PSP and DS.

“We believe that peak industry sales will occur in 2010, given that Microsoft will likely introduce its next console that year and Nintendo will likely launch before then,” he said. “Further, 2010 is also likely to coincide with the end of the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP cycles.”

Wilson’s comments came in a week where EA looked as far ahead as 2011 for a revenue target. He made no mention of a PlayStation 3 cycle, which is reasonably assumed to be further reaching than Xbox 360′s and far distant to Wii’s.