Video Game and Interactive Entertainment Industry

Market research firm DFC Intelligence has released its latest forecast for the video game and interactive entertainment industry. The new report forecasts that worldwide sales of traditional PC game, video game and portable game hardware and software are expected to increase from $23.2 billion in 2003 to $31.6 billion in 2009. Last month DFC released a separate report, The Online Game Market 2004, which estimated that the online game market would reach sales of $9.8 billion by 2009. This would result in combined interactive entertainment revenue of $41.4 billion in 2009.

The new report is a scenario based on Microsoft launching a system one year before Sony and Nintendo. In April, DFC released a separate scenario forecasting a 2006 launch for all new game systems. Both scenarios are part of the DFC service Worldwide Market Forecasts for the Video Game and Interactive Entertainment Industry. This service provides detailed, regularly updated five-year forecasts for video game hardware and software, portable game systems, and PC game software. The forecasts are broken down by individual platform, region of the world (U.S., Europe, Japan and the rest of the world which includes Canada and Asia Pacific regions). Platforms forecasted include PC game software, Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 2/ Xbox Next, Nintendo Revolution/ GameCube 2, Nintendo Game Boy Advance, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS and Nokia N-Gage.

The new report also presents the first detailed forecasts for the new portable game systems coming from Sony and Nintendo. According to David Cole, president of DFC Intelligence, the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP are expected to help drive an increase in sales for the portable game market from $3.9 billion worldwide in 2003 to $11.1 billion in 2007.