Shadow1980 said:
The fortunes of the video games market are, as far as anyone can tell, not dependent on the state of the economy, be it boom or bust. Sales continued to rise during the last recession, which took place early last generation, contrary to what one would think given how many people fell on hard times. Similarly, we had another smaller recession in 2001, again early on in a console generation, yet the console market experienced significant sales growth. The console cycle of grow-peak-decline-repeat seems to just go on its own pace, almost as if people continue to spend on entertainment even in tough economic times (movies likewise seem to be recession-proof). Granted, we haven't seen anything nearly as severe as the Great Depression in 90 years, so we don't know how recession-proof games really are, but so far, the Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, and Trump economies have meant precisely diddly squat when it comes to consumer spending on video games. |
The Great Recession occurred from 2007 to 2009, in the middle of the seventh generation with the Wii, Xbox 360, and the PS3. Despite the PS3 struggling until near the end of the generation, all three consoles had pretty incredible LTD numbers. Not to mention the pretty healthy handheld division with the DS and the PSP.
