24th January 2010 - Following on from the press releases from Sony and Microsoft regarding their sales performances in 2009, information continues to trickle out about just how much Australia loves games, and spent in 2009. Despite some economic instability, gamers bought more controllers and more family games than ever before. IGEA Spokesman Ron Curry said Australia has defied the Global Trend because thankfully the economic crisis has had less of an impact in our part of the world.
The new PS3, and the rise of family friendly casual games saw Aussies spend 2 billion on Gaming during 2009. The Interactive Gaming and Entertainment Association are reporting Australian Games Sales rose 4% while other countries recorded lower spending.
27% of all games sold at retail were “family games” up 11% from 2008. Second was action coming in at 15% of total sales. Controller sales rose 31% due in part to increase in co-operative or ‘group titles’ (This is not including bundled items)
Thanks to Sony’s price cut and Microsoft following suit, 2.2 million video games consoles were sold. Sony is recording a 27% jump in sales taking the total number of Australian PS3's to 770,000 in homes around the country.
Apparently the amount spent is actually higher as the above doesn't inlude Australian sales of mobile phone software’s, downloadable games and software sales for the mega corporations.
Finally, as if gamers didn’t have enough already, Rockstar has released an iPhone port of GTA: Chinatown wars, their definitive Grand Theft Auto for mobile devices. The iPhone is already recognized as a genuine gaming device but for only $13 you can have all the content from the DS and PSP version with apparently, even better graphics.
Game on Australia, game on!
Article By Ian Crane