Analyst Proclaims European Game Market Equal in Size to North America!!

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Speaking at the Games Connection Developer Conference (GCDC) in Leipzig, Colin Sebastian, analyst for Lazard Capital Markets, said Europe's game market is now about equal in size to North America's at about $10 billion, according to a report on Gamasutra. The amount jumps to $15 billion if you also include hardware. He speculates that this will encourage continued emphasis on the region from third-party publishers such as THQ and Activision Blizzard. He also boldly noted that from his point of view "just about everything looks to be on track to release on time." Maybe he's factoring in the traditionally later releases for titles in Europe than what we see in North America. We can't remember the last time a season hit without some prominently delayed games.

Sebastian further believes we won't see a new console from the big three manufacturers until at least 2011 or 2012, and that digital distribition won't necessarily gain market share. He admits the platform was one of the prevalent themes at GCDC, but believes, "digital downloads are likely to remain a small part of the overall software market for the next several years." Sebastian's opinion on the future of the distribution method comes as a bit of a shock to us since companies are offering an increasing amount of digital content via a plethora of services, the most recent of which is Sony and their efforts to provide consumers with full retail titles via the PlayStation Network. Depending on the success of these endeavors, Sebastian's predictions might prove to be a gross underestimation.

That's very good news with the Ps3 having distanced itself from the Xbox 360 and a gap is emerging in Europe, the PAL terortories will have a huge role to play in the PS3's 10 year lifecycle!

Europe will overtake America soon, the Euro is too strong!

Who needs America??

http://www.1up.com/do/news?ct=NEWS&p=PS3