According to Gamesutra and a Screen digest-authored report, Electronic Arts and Activision released 75% of the games released from July to September.
Electronic Arts released 21 titles including their yearly sports games such as the Tiger Woods and Madden series. Activision, not far behind, released 19 games. Collectively, they have released 75% of all games in Quarter 3 (July-September) and will cover 40% of all releases in Quarter 4 (October-July)
According to the report, the Wii currently has the most titles out of the three consoles.
Recently, the FTC ruled that Electronic Art’s takeover of Take-Two Interactive did not violate any anti-trust laws. In July we saw a 35% increase in year-to-date sales. However, in the last month we’ve seen three developers, NCSoft, Midway, and Radical Entertainment, layoff dozens of workers.
The video game industry is drastically changing with the influx of so many gamers thanks to Sony’s, Nintendo’s, and Microsoft’s efforts in marketing to the casual gamer. In this multi-billion dollar industry we are now seeing certain publishers initiating more aggressive business tactics. Although growth is welcomed, it’s never good to see a few select publishers dominating in an industry as young as this.
