Analysts explain why October didn’t perform as well as expected

Analysts had high hopes for October, particularly because of the release of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, so it may have come as disturbing news to hear that a lot of titles didn’t perform as well as they had predicted.

As it stands, October showed a solid rise in sales even if it didn’t live up to expectations. More in the full article.

Analysts had high hopes for October, particularly because of the release of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, so it may have come as disturbing news to hear that a lot of titles didn’t perform as well as they had predicted.

As it stands, October showed a solid rise even if it didn’t live up to expectations as software sales increased 39%. Activision’s revenues rose 414% because of Guitar Hero III. Analysts provide a number of theories for the underperformance of titles they expected to fare better.

While analysts agree that numbers may have went down because PlayStation 2 titles performed 29% less than last year, Pacific Crest Securities postulates that it may also be because Toys ‘R’ US didn’t submit their numbers to the NPD, which means the numbers aren’t complete.

Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan offers his own theory, saying that some game sales numbers weren’t tallied in the count because they were offered as part of a bundle.

Jesse Divinch of simExchange on the other hand, believes that sales were lower for the simple reason that the titles didn’t perform well. He notes, in particular, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction which sold only almost half of the forecast.

While Divinch believes that the PlayStation 3 may be in danger because of the underperformance of exclusive titles, Pachter believes that the holiday season is still solid for Sony because of the recent price drop and the introduction of the 40 GB model.

Via GameSpot