Games are set to generate more cash than music and video combined this year, according to a report from Verdict Research.
The stat crunchers at Verdict expect spending on games to hit £4.64bn in 2008, up 42%, while music and video sales are predicted to total £4.46bn, reports the BBC.
"There is no doubt that the games sector is having a fantastic year," said a more cautious Steve Redmond of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), "but these figures overstate that by including games hardware.
"Our prediction is that games will overtake video by the end of this year," he added, "but not music and video combined."
Either way, that's a ton of money and it's great to see games performing so well.
We imagine the only problem most of you will face this Christmas is deciding which games to spend your money on as there are so many big new titles to choose from.
We imagine the only problem most of you will face this Christmas is deciding which games to spend your money on as there are so many big new titles to choose from.
Except finding a Wii or a copy of WiiFit this Xmas I take it?
It probably helps that games cost at least 3 times as much as your average DVD and 4 times that of an album, but I imagine this survey takes into consideration games with expensive peripherals (Guitar Hero, Wii Fit etc.) which is going to bump that total up even further.
It is online sales of CDs and DVDs that have grown rapidly, rather than digital downloads, which still only account for around 4% of music and video sales.
This was also in the report and interesting!! I doubt Digital downloads in general. Some like them, but others not!!
Piracy has ruined the movies and music industries hail to bluray for setting security high,look at how many copies of GTA4 for the 360 was ripped off?
You are joking yea? Go online, any torrent site or newsgroup, look for the HD stuff, pretty much all of it ripped from BluRay.
The only reason you dont see punters ripping off PS3 games yet is the cost of blank Blu-Ray discs and the time it would take to download the games.
yeh, i have bucket loads of ps 3 games ripped in a black cd pouch and my ps3 has been chipped since day one, down the market there's ps3 games everywhere.......oh hang on a sec, that was the ps1/2....those days are long gone and for me i'm glad. i get much more enjoyment online gaming and making the most of games i've spent Ł40 quid on rather than 5 games at a time and only play 10 minutes of each. blue ray will stop a lot of pirated ps3 games as the mini dvd did for the gamecube.
yeh, i have bucket loads of ps 3 games ripped in a black cd pouch and my ps3 has been chipped since day one, down the market there's ps3 games everywhere.......oh hang on a sec, that was the ps1/2....those days are long gone and for me i'm glad. i get much more enjoyment online gaming and making the most of games i've spent Ł40 quid on rather than 5 games at a time and only play 10 minutes of each. blue ray will stop a lot of pirated ps3 games as the mini dvd did for the gamecube.
To be fair, I think that all console users will be in the same boat, chip your machine, cant play online, hence why mine has been left untouched! Plus of course, I seem to have some sort of addiction to buying games
I wont lie, my Xbox was chipped, but that had nothing to do with pirating games, it was purely for the Xbox Media Center, which was superb for streaming. If my xbox had the horse power to stream HD stuff, then I'd still be using to this day!
Once blank BD discs become more reliable/cheaper tho, I think that you'll see "Knock off Nigel" discs more and more often. I already know quite a few guys who have chipped PS3's and use it to play BD/Game copies.
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