Global videogame sales surpass movie industry in 2008!

According to consulting firm Hudson Square Research (HSR), the video game industry’s recent surge has finally allowed it to catch up to the movie business on a global basis. Whereas the games industry surpassed this movie industry back in 2005 in America alone, as well as gaming surpassing the music industry in 2007.

Analyst Daniel Ernst reports that in the past year, from March 2007 to March 2008, global video game (software) revenues grew 38%. Global software sales reached $26.5 billion, only slightly behind the film industry’s $26.7 billion. The rest of the year he anticipates global software revenues to climb another 31% to $34.6 billion. Hardware revenue, on the other hand, will see a 5% decline to $18.9 billion.

To quote: “Gutenberg’s press supplanted the oral story, the television supplanted the radio, the Internet is supplanting the newspaper, and the DVR is supplanting the network schedule. Consumers are increasingly in control of their media experience - narrowing in on what they consume, where they consume it, and when they consume it. We see interactive entertainment (video games) as an extension of that control, where the protagonist, settings, and outcomes are dictated not by the author or screenwriter, but by the players themselves. While the film industry’s set of home movie windows provides another leg of growth equal to or greater than box office sales, we believe the rise of video games to the same revenue stature provides a notable perspective.”

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