The Electronic Entertainment Design and Research company developed a new study to find out how downloadable content effects game sales. The results show a huge spike in sales which is almost double to that of a game with no online content.
The online content being describe doesn’t just refer to buyable content like extra maps and expansions, it’s referring to something as simple as a demo and trailer. With those two simple components, a game’s revenue is liable to jump up by 69 percent.
Fun fact: The Xbox 360 games that have downloadable content have shown an increase of 129 percent compared to the PS3’s 16 percent.
This goes to show the success of the Xbox Live Marketplace and what a strong marketing resource it has become to developers recently.
Other EEDAR findings:
Downloadable Games:
* 187 downloadable game titles are available on Console Storefronts; Wii has released 51 percent of these
* PS3 Prices range from $4.99 to $19.99, Median of $5.99, Average $6.17
* Wii range from $1.00 – $10.00, Median of $6.00, Average $6.69
* Xbox 360 range from $5 – $15, Median of $10, Average $7.53
* 100% of downloadable Wii games are re-releases from previous consoles such as the original Nintendo Entertainment System or Nintendo 64
* Wii has far exceeded both PS3 and Xbox 360 in providing downloadable games
* The Wii released 95 titles in its first 7 months
* The PlayStation 3 released 29 Titles in its first 7 months
* The Xbox 360 released 21 Titles in its first 7 months
* 39% of downloadable games are from the Arcade genre, followed by 21% from the Action genre
* 94% of downloadable Arcade genre games are re-releases from previous systems
Downloadable Game Content (Not Including Movies/Music/TV Shows)
* Seventh Generation games (PS3, Wii, Xbox 360) with downloadable demos and trailers have a strong correlation with higher sales
* On Average, Seventh Generation retail games with both a downloadable demo and trailer generate 69% more revenue than games without either
* On Average, Seventh Generation retail games with a downloadable demo generate 62% more revenue than games without either a demo or a trailer
* On Average, Seventh Generation retail games with a downloadable trailer generate 72% more revenue than games without either a demo or a trailer
* For the new generation of consoles, 94% of available downloadable content is on the Xbox 360; 6% on the available content is on the PlayStation 3. The Wii does not offer downloadable content
* The total value of all Xbox 360 downloadable content is worth more than 40 times as much as the total value of all PlayStation 3 downloadable content
* 80% of the downloadable content on the PlayStation 3 is free; only 29% is free on Xbox 360
* Average price of downloadable content is between $1.69 (Xbox 360) and $1.97 (PS3)
via [next-gen]
