Australian games industry sees highest sales ever in 2006

17 January 2007

Posted by:Josh

The Australian video games industry has always remained behind when it comes to video game releases, and like-wise, sales of video game hardware and accessories. But as the main three hardware competitors and software publishers continually trend towards worldwide releases, or at the very least, releases that are closer to the original dates of titles and hardware in Japan and the U.S., countries like Australia have seen tremendous growth.

This year Australia saw two new hardware releases, the Xbox 360 (Mar. 23rd) and the Nintendo Wii (Dec. 7th). Spurring overall total video game sales of A$925 million ($727.8 million) for 2006, a 7% increase over 2005. The biggest growth was, naturally, in hardware, whose sales overall rose 18% to A$329 million.

In a statement, IEAA CEO Chris Hanlon forecasted that the Australian games industry would continue its strong growth in 2007. “2007 will be a considerable year for hardware sales and the Australian interactive games industry will comfortably exceed the A$1 billion mark,” Hanlon said.

More 2006 sales in easier to read list form below:

- Game software accounted for A$596 million worth of sales, a 1% increase from 2005.
- Christmas was the busiest time of year, with 23 percent of all games sold (A$211 million) in December 2006.
- Nintendo’s DS was the indisputed hardware leader with 151,922 DS units sold between Oct.and Dec. 2006. Compared with 122,639 PS2s, the second highest in hardware sales. The PSP sold 55,850 units in the same period.
- Both Xbox 360 and Wii had strong final quarter sales. Wii sold an impressive 51,744 units, despite debuting on December 7. The last three months of the year saw the Xbox 360 reach 45,036 units.

Categories: News

Dr Smith

The PS2 Christmas sales could end up being bad news for the release of the PS3 in the Europe this March,Most console buyers are parents and Christmas has shown they will go for the PS2 cheaper bundles rather than the much higher price of the next gen consoles(the PS3 being the highest priced one)so March comes some 12 weeks after Christmas and I don’t think you will see the buyers of those 12 week old PS2s rushing out for the PS3 anytime soon.
http://www.myspace.com/astrotriforce astrotriforce

Yeah, I agree. I work at a an electronic’s store, a huge one, called Fry’s Electronics. And right now we have a stack of about 20 PS3′s or more. The stack was higher, and they have sold, BUT, the selling of the systems has literally slowed to a trickle. People simply can’t be bothered to pay so much money.

With the Wii, we still sell out as soon as we get them in.

I can’t wait to see how this plays out. It’s definitely going to be interesting.
Blu

And if the Xbox 360 price drop comes it’s also looking to be around March time + bigger Harddrives and they have a large games release scheduled for March and some big AAA titles in there.I can’t see how the PS3 can hold it’s price if the first Two(as the Third is definite)things happen above.
supadupagama

I wouldn’t count on an Xbox 360 price reduction before the end of 2007 Blu, Microsoft are finally earning some money on each console instead of bleeding money like they have the past 5 years on Xbox, and with such a high PS3 price, they probably feel pretty safe. I’m sure they’ll throw in a free game this year though, maybe a Halo 3 bundle whenever a big PS3 title like Metal Gear Solid 4 comes out?