Well I don't agree with Gearbox's predictions but right now it is hard for me to tell. First and foremost, I need to lest 2009 end, and once last week's sales are fully in then I'll be able to go from there.
I think there a few points of interest though. One, despite Wii and 360 being down, they weren't down by much. PS3 of course increased and DS sales were flat. We are talking about 2009 sales compared to 2008. 2008 was a record breaking year all around and we come back to 2009 where summer sales were slow and at the end of the year only PSP was extremely down YoY. That's saying something about the industry. Two, to follow up on that the market is expanding. It's arguable that the economy might have hurt potential growth in the summer and simply delayed it to the holidays of 2009. With 2010 coming with one of the best gaming lineups in history and three new products (Vitality Sensor, Natal, Sony Wand) we could be potentially looking at more growth. A lot of this growth is happening in Europe and Others regions with some more happening in America.
So when making predictions, I think we need to take that into fact. Can't say I'm suggesting that 2010 will be bigger than 2009 but hey I can't say I'll deny the possibility. 2010 has everything in place to be a breakout year for gaming similar to that of 2007 (shortages all around stopped that). So after last week's sales go up I'll see if I can make some competent predictions.
