Big Industry Growth Projected for Video Game Market

For those that who's financial and purchasing behaviors are governed by analysts will be delighted to hear that a new report from DFC Intelligence projects that the market is going to be very bright for video game and PC entertainment.

A whole $20.7 billion to be exact. According to the report, the worldwide market as a whole is expect to reach as high as $30 billion by 2007. In addition, DFC expects consumers will "by and large be playing on a new breed of game systems that have yet to be released."


"We think that the successors to the Sony PlayStation 2, the Microsoft Xbox and the Nintendo GameCube are likely to be the fastest selling video game systems ever," said David Cole, president of DFC Intelligence.

Leading the market is Sony and its PlayStation brand. According to Cole, "the PlayStation 2 could eventually have sales of over 100 million hardware units, thus the PlayStation 3 has to be a favorite to continue Sony's market leadership position."

However, the report claims that it is inevitable that Microsoft and Nintendo will take market share away from Sony. "The PlayStation 2 has been completely dominant, but we expect as much as 50% of PlayStation 2 owners to eventually buy an Xbox or GameCube," said Cole.

The report contains three separate scenarios for future growth. Under all scenarios, the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 are the market share leaders, however Microsoft and Nintendo are significantly more competitive then they are in today's marketplace. "Nintendo is being very aggressive with hardware pricing, software bundling and is doing a better job with third-party relationships. This should really benefit them in the long-term," said Cole.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is expected to be extremely competitive on all fronts and has now become a battle-tested veteran. Cole noted that the Xbox was the first system from Microsoft, and it got off to a late start, nevertheless, the Xbox still has been quite competitive. The solid market performance of the Xbox significantly increases the market outlook for future game systems from Microsoft. According to Cole, "we think Microsoft and the Xbox could be potentially strong in Europe, a region that has been somewhat neglected by video game hardware manufacturers."

<font size="1">Source: DFC Intlligence</font>

Great. Even more blithering idiots buying Deer Hunter games at wal-mart who are catered to far more than someone like me who buys 2-3 games per month.