Pachter: Games industry in "persistent decline"

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has said May's NPD results are showing the games industry is in a "persistent" state of decline.

Speaking to MCV in reaction to the figures, Pachter said a worrying trend is appearing, despite the month's software line-up being stacked in favour of dramatic growth.

“We expect investors to remain spooked by the May results, as they are beginning to reinforce the notion that the videogame industry is in a state of persistent secular decline," he said.

“Despite May’s easy percentage and dollar comparisons and long-anticipated debuts for a handful of games, it became clear that several of May’s games performed well below expectations as the month progressed.”

Pachter singled out Nintendo, which, despite its huge install base, seems to be one of the worst hit when it comes to software sales.

“Wii software sales were down 29 percent year-over-year, and DS software sales were down 13 percent, while PS3 software sales were up 58 per cent and Xbox 360 software sales were up 29 per cent.

“We think this is remarkable, given growth in the Wii hardware installed base of 44 percent and growth in the DS installed base of 33 percent over the last 12 months. In our view, this indicates that Nintendo’s customers either are not finding enough software to satisfy their needs, or need less software than the typical Sony or Microsoft customer.”

You can catch all of the NPD results for May here.