The current economic climate may be preventing gamers from buying every game on their must-play list, but going by release schedules for the now-underway holiday season, most gamers wouldn't have the time anyway. There are simply too many games coming out.

The reason for the glut of gaming goodness hasn't changed, according to opinions of games industry financial analysts. "At Christmas there are two buyers: the user and the gift giver. The rest of the year, there is only one buyer," remarked well-known analyst Michael Pachter in an Edge feature.

"If this were the cinema business, this would be like five massive movies coming out in the same week: Harry Potter, Batman, James Bond, Spider-Man--all coming out at the same time," joked Mike Hickey with Janco Partners.

The prevailing opinion among anaylsts is that the non-winter months of the year are more viable than is often thought. "Look at GTA IV. It proves you can have a wider window than the three months of the holiday season," said Hickey. "It would make more sense to spread releases out," added Pachter in agreement.

For publishers slowly edging away from holiday releases, the trick... Read more

Consumers are not quite comfortable with the higher prices attached to games in the current console generation, according to research released by Frank N. Magid Associates on GameDaily.

43 percent of surveyed "next-gen" console owners said they would wait for game prices to fall before buying, while 30 percent said they resorted to buying more used games instead. Only 17 percent said that "for the right game, the price would not matter."

Respondents to the Magid survey were allowed to choose multiple answers. 23 percent of those questioned said they would buy fewer games that retailed for $59.99. 17 percent also answered that they would turn to game rental instead of buying some games.

Console makers and publishers drew some ire from gamers at the start of the current generation of gaming consoles--Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii--as they announced that games in this generation would generally retail for $59.99, a $10 premium over the previous generation. Gaming companies claimed a number of justifications for the price hike such as increased production costs.

Only three in ten games make enough money to recover development costs, former Sony executive Chris Deering stated in a Edinburgh Interactive Festival keynote.

Prior to his appointment as president of Sony Europe, Deering served as the head of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe during the launch of the original PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and PSP, which gave him significant knowledge of Sony's internal and external development strategies. He resigned from Sony in 2005.

By 2011, Deering estimates that there will be 2.5 billion potential gamers across the world with cable and internet providers being a part of the "competitive array," according to Develop.

With more competitors coming in and publishers rarely breaking even, he said "something is going to have to be there to make up the difference... Read more