US Game Market To Hit $20 Billion This Year?
Despite universal fiscal woes, the US video game market looks set to exceed its 2008 sales record of $18.8 billion. In fact, Janco analyst Mike Hickey predicts that the industry will hit the $20 billion mark in 2009.
Larger installed bases and "mild" software price reductions will effect the mix, but Hickey does believe that the lion's share of the software growth will come in the second half of the year, a turning point that could shift.
But forecasts aren't nearly as pretty for the hardware side of the biz, with an estimated 5.4% drop to $7.4 billion from $7.8 billion in 2008. Specifically, Hickey points out that the continued incredible sales of Nintendo's Wii and DS are "critical" for the year. But with sales from the latter half of 2008 claiming only a dismal 10% growth (compared with a bullish 43% for the latter half of 2007), "critical" is certainly the right word.
Analyst: U.S. Game Market To Reach $20 Billion In 2009 [Gamasutra]
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Posted to Miscellany on 20 February 2009
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