Forecast: Video Game Market Will Soar to $57 Billion by 2009

Buckle up for another study concluding that while the general US economy may be slumping, the video games market is virtually bulletproof. According to DFC, the worldwide interactive entertainment industry is on track to achieve revenues of $57 billion as early as next year. For the record, global video game industry revenue is thought to have approached $40 billion in 2007.

But wait, didn't we see predictions a couple years ago that the global industry would be worth $58.4 billion by 2007?

What's the deal?

Well first of all, different research companies are naturally going to come to different conclusions based on different probability algorithms and whatever distinguishing factors a firm's analysts emphasize. That's a good thing. Consensus in forecasting ought to be rare. It keeps everyone on their toes, and stagnation from entering the equation.

It's also a given that no matter how you look at it, the global games market has been absolutely booming the last several years. Between 2000 and 2001, the U.S. games industry grew from $6.6 billion to $9.4 billion. In 2007, that figure was up to a record-shattering $17.94 billion (and it doesn't even include PC game sales or online revenue).

Still, the Informa report seems in hindsight to have been a smidgen optimistic. The DFC report may be skewing more conservative, too, given the dollar slump, reflecting a sense that while the games market will definitely keep growing, it may not grow as fast as it would have in a cheerier market climate.

A couple additional points of interest:

Hewing to a trend that's seen analysts tripping over themselves to apologize for initially pessimistic predictions about the Wii, DFC analyst David Cole says "The Wii does not appear to be a fad and it has the chance to be one of the best selling systems of all-time." Read that again: the best selling system of all time. Does anyone doubt the probability of that happening at this point?

There's also refreshingly good news for PC gamers in this report. According to DFC, the PC was the number one platform for games in 2007. PC online game revenue alone surpassed $7 billion in 2007 (that's not including retail sales) and total PC game revenue is expected to reach $19 billion by 2013.

Ergo: PC gaming is dead...long live online PC gaming!

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