James Delahunty
17 Jun 2010 1:00
Industry research group NPD revealed earlier this year that U.S. consumers had spent $19.66 billion on games products in 2009, including hardware, software and accessories. This was a significant drop from $21.4 billion take in 2008 for the industry. Of the $19.66 billion, NPD had estimated from its research that $10.5 billion was spent on software.
The NPD stats however only account for the sale of new software titles at retail, and leave out the sale of used games, subscription fees, downloadable content and more. NPD has carried out research that allows it to factor in these sources of revenue and also game rentals and mobile game applications (but not social network games).
With the extra sources of revenue for the wide industry added in, NPD reports that the software take jumps between $4.5 - $4.75 billion for 2009, bringing the total to between $15 - $15.25 billion. "Our expanded estimate of consumer spending reflects the growing number of options to purchase, acquire and interact with video games ranging from GameFly rentals to iPod Touch game apps," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.
"Consumer spending on social network games like those offered by Facebook would push this estimate even higher."