Family and Action Games drive Australian industry up

Mike Bantick
Tuesday, 20 January 2009 07:56

Your IT - Entertainment

Curry added that despite other business’ experiencing the effects of a turbulent end to 2008, the increase in sales figures for the games industry demonstrated that interactive entertainment has become as mainstream in popularity, as watching television or surfing the net.

“We have definitely moved past the days of the stereotypical gamer”, he said.

Microsoft Australia were also pretty chuffed about the past 2008, with Australians hooking up their Xbox 360’s to Xbox LIVE to download 4.2 billion items during 2008.

Michael Ephraim from Sony Computer Entertainment in Australia was also happy to point out the demographic shift in the country.  He told the Sydney Morning Herald ; "It's clear now that the [games] industry is the nucleus of entertainment - it has come out of the bedroom, into the living room, and on to every kind of device, and we're going to see another few years of considerable growth."

Meanwhile – observationally, every kid/mum/dad/grand parent in the street is clamming to get a Nintendo Wii or DS – Nintendo dominated the Australian market, as it did around the world in 2008.
  
During 2008 both consoles broke 'fastest to reach' sales records, with the hand-held DS reaching 1.5 million and the Wii hitting the 750,000 units shipped.