Broadpoint AmTech analyst Ben Schachter has an idea as to why the industry's sales have fallen flat. Well actually, make that three ideas. He's summarized his reasons in the bullet points below.

1. Wii Weakness: Since few publishers outside of Nintendo significantly benefited from the Wii boom, few will be significantly hurt as the platform stalls.
2. Casual Games Competition: Again, few publishers significantly benefited from casual (though Ubisoft was the non-Nintendo leader for casual female gamers on the DS).
3. Music Games Fatigue: The genre is past its prime. While it still accounts for 9% of YTD 2009 sales, it is down 40% vs. 2008. ATVI is obviously the most impacted by this (as ERTS is only a distributor for Rock Band).

I can agree with points 1 and 3, but I'm not too sure that point 2 makes much sense. I haven't heard any talk at all about a negative aspect of the casual gaming side of things, other than hateful cries from 'hardcore' gamers.

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