Peter Skerritt's blog

January has flown by and it's time for the first NPD predictions column of the year.

GameStop stock values are in the midst of a four-day losing streak, as shares have fallen from $25.00 on January 25th to $23.36 at the closing bell today. It's likely that any number of factors could be attributed to the slump. Maybe there's a fear that sales are weak after the holidays. Maybe there's some basic profit-taking going on. It's hard to really pinpoint anything.

The decision to lock out used games would be a major gamble for Microsoft to make. While the decision would likely be cheered by the industry, the possibility of fewer consumers and doing irreparable harm to relationships with retail partners has serious implications.

There has been a lot of attention paid lately to the rather tepid response for the PlayStation Vita over in Japan. According to Media Create data, a mere 18,361 Vita units sold last week. That boosted the number over 500,000 units overall, and it took just shy of a month to reach that benchmark. It's likely that you've read the doom-and-gloom stories about the Vita and how disappointing that sales have been over there. Some analysts are worried, some consumers are worried, but Sony isn't worried yet.

Software sales were the highlight of November's NPD report. Strong Year Over Year (YOY) comparisons were the result of one of the strongest months of software releases in recent memory.

After a weekend rife with rumors and denials, eyes should be on THQ this week to see whether any fallout results from the currently unsubstantiated turmoil.

December 2011 is a month that, upon review of the NPD report, continues the slide that the console video game industry has seen for much of the year. Hardware sales were down 32% from a December ago, with weaker Wii and PlayStation 3 sales leading the decline.

We've been seeing a gradual shift in software sales in the last couple of years towards digital distribution. Full retail games have been available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 over that time and, although the digital library is but a fraction of the retail library, digital has been catching up.

When I had a chance to spend some time with the PlayStation Vita at E3 back in June, I was impressed. Uncharted looked and felt remarkably like its PlayStation 3 counterparts and the idea of optional touch controls for platforming plus a neat motion mechanic for the sniper rifle mode raised my excitement level...

The news about Ridge Racer for the PlayStation Vita and its dearth of content in favor of downloadable content (DLC) reignites the discussion about how DLC affects retail games. Issues with weak content versus numerous DLC offerings is nothing new for Namco.