In November 2005, Microsoft released the Xbox 360, an update to their first console. This signaled an end of the PS2/Xbox era, and marked the start of a new generation of consoles that would last for nearly a decade. Sony and Nintendo’s responses, the Playstation 3 and Wii, respectively, would come out a year later in November 2006.
While compiling data for the 2012 Annual Report, I was curious what the release schedule looked like for the games of these systems, and if there really were any noticeable trends happening during their generation.
(Click the years on the right of the chart to show or hide years)
The above graph is a look at game releases over the last generation of video games, not just across Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3, but rather a generalized look at all game releases in that time span, including releases on the PC and handheld devices as well as downloadable games. Just like the 2012 report, App store games are not included, unless sales numbers for it were actually published for it.
You can see there’s nothing overly surprising, but there are a few trends that happen every year. March tends to see a slight increase in releases every year. Then there’s always a slump in July. And of course there’s a huge boost in games by the third quarter.
Another interesting thing to note is the ramp up of game releases every year between 2006 to 2010. Every year more and more games were released, with ‘08, ‘09, and ‘10 having exceptionally large amounts of releases. After that, we can see a steady decline every year after. While still following the same release pattern. One explanation could be that by 2008, studios finally hit their stride with developing for the current generation of consoles, and by 2011, development on games for the next generation of consoles began.