Games outsold DVD and Blu-ray last year
The continued rise in videogame sales is largely attributed to the success of the Nintendo Wii and DS.
The sales figures show that while DVD and Blu-ray sales dropped by six percent last year, videogames grew by a staggering 20 percent and grew a lead over movie formats of more than £1.5 billion GBP.
According to the analysts at Media Control a huge amount of this growth comes down to the popularity of the Nintendo DS and Wii platforms, says GI.biz.
The continued popularity of the DS and Wii is expected to introduce yet more people to gaming and drive sales in the industry ever upwards. Media Control predicts that by the end of this year game sales will account for more than 57 percent of all packaged media sales, which is an increase of more than four percent on last year.
Software sales themselves are expected to grow by another 12 percent in the next 12 months, while the decline in DVD and Blu-ray is set to accelerate.
The sales figures fit well with often heard notion that the videogame industry as a whole may prove largely resilient to the economic downturn, thanks to the increased longevity and replayability of games over other forms of entertainment.
Have your spending habits changed at all over the last 12 months? Let us know if they have or not in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums Replywhats the cost of making a movie vs making a Game surely a game is like 10x cheaper
It really depends, you can get extremes in both industries.
In the film industry some films are made on cheap digital gear in people's spare time or by huge budget studio productions.
In the games industry you can have games made by small indie game development studios with a handfull of staff and six months time or by big devs that might have 200-300 highly skilled (and generally decently paid) professionals working for four years.
If its units - holy hell I'll be shocked.
I should imagine (from TFA's use of GBP) that it's revenue.
Any numbers on PC alone? I think it might be interesting to see how dead PC gaming is. ;)
If any part of the video game industry is resistant, it's serious games that already have their money given or granted to them or the smaller studios or projects that are working short cycles with small teams (and possibly second jobs). Only the larger studios with existing ample money to help weather the downturn (or entice people to remain confident in them) can afford to hold tight for a little.
you could do an article and base it around something like hale life 2, the latest Fifa reincarnation and something like darwinia
just to compare the different spectrum of development styles
Wow, just wow.
How did they compare against toaster sales, or winscreen wiper sales? ZOMG, I wonder if they outsold Coke & PEPSI!
What other industries can we compare next to each other? How about motor bikes compared with push bikes?
Seconded. I think this might be interesting allthough it sounds like a lot of work. Then again... it's your job! :p I have to admit I doubt this'll help a lot clarifying the whole situation. Does anybody have some numbers on how much movies cost in production?
From the MPAA