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Worldwide Games Industries See Major Growth

Posted by Zonk on from the there-are-other-markets dept.

With the seventh generation of consoles now in play, and online gaming shooting for the stratosphere, games markets in other nations are now seeing unheard-of growth. Gamasutra reports that China's online gaming market saw 74% growth in 2006, up to 6.54 billion Yuan, or $US 839 million. Over half of the titles in that market are home-grown. Meanwhile, GameDaily has the word that Canada's games industry is rapidly approaching $1 Billion. Games sales are up worldwide, as that article reports. "The U.K. had a record breaking year, game sales in Japan hit an all-time high, the U.S. video game industry achieved a new record of $12.5 billion, and now it would appear that our North American counterpart also set a new record. The Canadian Press has reported that Canada's video game industry came close to $1 billion in sales during 2006, hitting a new record of $933 million (up 22 percent)."

16 comments

  1. Hooray! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I look forward to reading Gibbonz' Rise and Fall of the Global Empire.

  2. Oh Noes! by commisaro · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Think of all the new, young, innocent minds which will now come under the evil Video Game industries diabolical sway! Steps must be taken before this menace of menace unleashes a doom more terrible to imagine, perpetrated by our own hypnotically deranged children!

    1. Re:Oh Noes! by RuBLed · · Score: 2, Funny

      "If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent. -- Bette Davis"

      Here is the quote that displayed at the bottom when I browsed this article. It seems like Bette Davis begs to differ...

      Think of the parents!!!

    2. Re:Oh Noes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only old people play doom in Canada.

    3. Re:Oh Noes! by bezuru · · Score: 1

      I think that it's ok for kids to play, just as long as they are playing something that is rated for them. Parrents, be wise!, mine are.

  3. Canada? by bronzey214 · · Score: 0, Troll

    And in other news, the Canadian video game manufacturer Nintendeh just announced the release of the new system NESA (Nintendeh Entertainment System, Eh) and the sequel to the ever popular "Duck Poke" being "Goose Poke". Nintendeh's spokesperson said in response to the games rather violent nature "You're just poking foul for Christ's sake! In America, you SHOOT the damn ducks, not poke them!".

    He was later booed off the stage and forced to wear a canadian bacon suit attached with maple syrup. Mounties were on hand to make sure the crowd did not get too rowdy, but the audience of 4 elderly men caused a ruckus.

    This was later found out to have been caused by a rather large intake of prune suit that morning.

    1. Re:Canada? by bronzey214 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Yeah, I meant juice.

  4. Breakdown by company? by Stuart+Gibson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Fanboyism aside and since I don't have time to rtfa, what percentage of these sales and growth were down to Nintendo and specifically the DS?

    --
    It's all fun and games until a 200' robot dinosaur shows up and trashes Neo-Tokyo... Again
    1. Re:Breakdown by company? by Rachel+Lucid · · Score: 1

      Why 'just' the DS? The Wii is just as first-party supported by Nintendo as the DS (maybe more) and it's a damn strong part of Nintendo's market too.

    2. Re:Breakdown by company? by antifood · · Score: 1

      Because the DS has taken over Japan (the Wii is doing extremely well, but the DS is just dominating everything).

    3. Re:Breakdown by company? by stonecypher · · Score: 1

      How the hell did someone saying "I didn't have time to read the article, someone read it for me" get modded insightful?

      --
      StoneCypher is Full of BS
    4. Re:Breakdown by company? by LionKimbro · · Score: 1

      The Wii can't be that strong, can it?

      The vast majority of people who want Wii's simply can't get them. I think there are far more PS2s and GameCubes and DS's out there, than Wii's.

  5. How sad... by CK2004PA · · Score: 0
    ...for Sony who in this record breaking time frame are missing sales forecasts for the PS3 by 25%:

    http://www.vgcharts.org/news.php?id=58

    TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- Sony Corp. (6758.TO) will reach only 75% of its global target for PlayStation 3 sales this fiscal year through March, according to a Nomura report released Monday.
    I guess that dust on top of those PS3's on all the store shelves isn't because Sony has been meeting demand, eh?
    --
    "I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator"-Adolf Hitler or George W Bush?
  6. Official game industry growth numbers! by Shayneisgreat · · Score: 1

    Xbox 360- 2.75% New Gamers PS3 - 12.2% New Gamers Nintendo- 3075% New Gamers

  7. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  8. Re:Inflation... by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

    Inflation is usually in the lower single digits, these growths are in the double digits. I would assume that would leave a lot of growth even after you subtract inflation (never mind that videogame prices have been pretty constant all this time, the 360 and PS3 are the first price increase in at least five years).

    --
    Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.