Survey on the Rate of Adjourned Sale of the Home Video Game Industry in Japan

Abstract

We carried out a survey on the rate of adjourned sales of home video games from famitsu, a major weekly magazine, in order to construct a reference index of project management on the home video game industry in Japan. We chose two major platforms, Playstation2 (PS2) and Game Boy Advance (GBA), and measured the percentage of titles which were postponed for sale once or more times. The results are as follows: 1) During the first year after the release of the new platform, the rate of adjourned sale was about 30% for both platforms, 2) Though the rate in GBA rapidly decreased year by year and was 7% in the fourth year, the rate of PS2 remained at 26% even in the fifth year, 3) Game titles scheduled to go on sale around the new-year holidays or at the end of the fiscal year showed a significantly higher rate of adjourned sales.