This Week in the Business: The TV Turn-Off

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week …

QUOTE | “TV, TV, TV. That couldn’t be further from the truth, it’s completely the wrong direction.”—Tameem Antoniades, Ninja Theory co-founder, on why the Xbox One and PS4 are on the wrong path

QUOTE | “Day One is certainly very important, but maybe too much emphasis is placed on it. The long-term success is built over time.”—Sony Canada exec Steve Turvey, on the record-setting launch of the PlayStation 4

QUOTE | “We’re working unbelievably hard to match demand. I can only apologize in advance to anybody who is let down before Christmas.”—Microsoft’s Phil Harrison, on the difficulty in making enough Xbox Ones

QUOTE | “For the core gamer, they still want that disc, and they want value for it after the fact.”—Best Buy vice president of entertainment Chris Koller, on why retail sales will still remain important despite day one digital sales on the new consoles

QUOTE | “Day one digital availability will fast become the norm rather than the exception, which we believe could result in 20-25 percent of gamers opting for the digital download.”—Longbow Research analyst James Hardiman on the increasing importance of digital and what that means for console gamers going forward

STAT | 25 million—Number of Wii U units Nintendo will sell during the product’s lifetime, according to DFC analyst David Cole; he feels “it’s looking to do about what the GameCube did” as “mainly be a system for Nintendo first party product”

QUOTE | “If there was a perfect model, someone would be making a lot of money off it right now.”—Kris Alexander, chief strategist for gaming at Akamai, on why game companies have problems launching online services

QUOTE | “In the first couple of years, we expect double the installed base of previous generations.”—Ubisoft sales and marketing VP Tony Key, on the company’s expectations for next-gen consoles

STAT | $3.45 billion—Total amount consumers in the US spent on video game content in Q3, according to NPD; this includes $1.3 billion on physical game software and $1.75 billion on digital content including mobile

QUOTE | “‘Now we’re getting 30 games at a time and it’s definitely a lot harder to rise above.”—Tom Ohle of indie developer Renegade Machine, on how Steam’s popularity is making it tougher for indies to get noticed

This Week in the Business courtesy of GamesIndustry International

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