Hold up Pa, I dropped my DS!

So according to an article published yesterday by GameSpot’s Tom Magrino, domestic game sales (hardware, software, accessories) spiked in December as expected (Christmas rush) but then held strong in January. In fact, when final January figures are released later this week, a top analyst predicts a 12% increase for the month for software sales. Wii Fit, he says, will sell 700,000 copies on the month; this figure would be record-setting for single-SKU sales in January.

Other industry analysts offered slightly different predictions. But bone-picking about numbers aside, all have predicted overall gains in software sales (as well as the continued dominance of the Wii in the realm of console sales).

How is it that game sales not suffering in a economic crisis which has resulted in record losses for EA, THQ, Sega and many others who publish and develop games? For all intents and purposes we are in a full-fledged recession and possibly, a Depression. And here we are, we still game, shop, read TSM. Elsewhere, President Obama scrambles to finalize an appropriate ‘stimulus’ plan, the words ‘bailout’ and ‘foreclosure’ are getting googled a million times a day and Starbucks and Subway are rolling out downturn-friendly 4 dollar combos! But nonetheless Joe Public, whose friends are getting laid off, and whose investments and home equity have taken a hit, is still shelling out at EB Games at record levels, buying the products of an industry which is making rounds of layoffs?

Maybe video games are a cure for depression. And personally I’d give up my house for an advance copy of Mad World.  Yes, bad joke. But why are game publisher stock prices plummeting while sales figures are climbing?  I don’t have a good answer to this one. The point of this post, I think, is to stimulate some discussion… Do people, falling upon harder times, spend more money (and time) gaming? And, if this is the case, why the reported losses and cuts all over the industry? Did the developers set unreasonably high Q4 targets? Are game sales recession-proof or aren’t they?