An article at Gamers With Jobs fills the customary role that follows reports of doom and gloom (in this case, low game sales): Saying the negative stories are overhyped and missing the point.

It’s baloney. What isn’t being talked about is the fact that consumers are buying more games than they ever have. They are just spreading the money out a bit more, putting dollars into the used market, into handheld devices, into services like Live Arcade, and into direct downloads. The handheld market alone, which just cracked into the billion dollar range in 2004, soared 62% to 1.6 billion for 2005 on the backs of the ever sturdy GBA, the largely successful launch of the PSP, and the coming of age of the DS. Let’s also not be quick to forget that handheld titles usually run at a significantly lower price point than traditional console titles, so if there’s a downturn in total dollar value, it doesn’t reflect the sale of fewer titles from a volume standpoint. It just means that customers didn’t buy into 2005’s $2.00 leap in the cost of the average console title.

But is this article in itself missing the point? None of the articles I've read have claimed the industry is going down the tubes -- most of them attributed the downturn, quite rightly, to a lack of big blockbuster titles for the past year and the transition between generations. To an extent, he's presenting a straw man, unless he can quote an article that I missed that reads along the lines of "OH GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE." The two links he offers at the beginning of his column certainly don't strike me as such.

But futhermore, while he's right in that the actual interest in games is still very healthy, these are all business reports. The financial books aren't concerned with whether people are buying games, they care whether people are buying their games. He actually gets into an argument about this in the comments section, and somehow still maintains his position that used games should matter even though publishers don't get a cut. I think this guy has confused financial reporting with general state-of-the-industry reporting, which are two very different things.

Source: Gamers With Jobs