Global Game Sales in 2008 Achieve Double-Digit Growth
Say what you will about our drooping economy, 2008 was the year video games sallied forth and did battle with the notion that having "second lives" and wagging remotes at TV screens with brio wasn't merely for the geek chic.
Just check the financials.
According to breaking data from Top Global Markets – a monthly report that integrates retail sales from NPD, GfK Chart-Track, and Enterbrain which cover US, UK, and Japan markets respectively – combined game software sales worldwide grew 11 percent in 2008.
Total units sold? 409.9 million. Compare with 2007's at the time impressive 367.7 million.
That's thanks in part to US and UK expansion, up 15 percent and 26 percent respectively. It's also in spite of a decline in Japanese sales of 13 points, which the report attributes to "a decline in portable software, followed by console software." The report adds Japan's decline doesn't reflect a downturn in current-gen sales, but rather "the shrinking PlayStation 2 software market."
