Topic.

 I remember hearing that movie theaters were a big deal during the depression era because they "helped people escape reality." Will game sales take a nose dive or stay relatively normal if a recession weere to occur?

Recession proof? Not nessisairly. Just due to how expensive videogames really are. The Higher end systems might take a hit while Hand Held systems and the PS2 still do well.

Where the Wii would fall i'm not sure.

It's different since the price of movies are standard among all movies. With games though... people may drop their ceilings which may cut out your 360 and PS3. Whether the Wii woud be included or not in this... I'm not sure.

Sony would probably be hurt pretty bad in the Blu-ray department too... as DVD's would be more likely to be "good enough."

PSP might go through the roof.  What with the piracy.  Maybe it could catch the DS with a continued depression! 

Wii would survive due to how different it is from the PS2 and other gaming consoles, plus it's the cheapest system that is still getting major new releases. It'd be pretty hard for Sony to backpedal and get developers to scrap their work on the PS3 and shift back to the PS2.

Yeah, i was thinking that. Really I think it depends on which way the "New audience" breaks. On the one hand they could become more entrenched in the Wii, or on the otherhand they could stick to "safer" old media like movies.

It might be a good thing for the Wii, or it might hurt it.

The extra imersion of the wii over movies might help it.

Depends how they sell it.  Wii bowling for example being a lot cheaper then real bowling.

video games are luxury items not a necessity depending how hard the recession is

i think the wii might be better off then the 360/ps3 just b/c of price...but in general they should not be to bad b/c like you said it helps with escape

Food, clothing, transport and energy and shelter are all much more important than wasting money on gaming. In hard times gaming sales will drop. I wonder what a huge spike in petrol prices would do to this gaming industry?

nop.. If government needs money then I'm sure they'll do something about this too.

(hardcore) video gamers don't wear Ralph Lauren, take women out to dinner and use cars to travel to jobs. so yes.

Yes, but it will be like how sweets are bot effected by the reccesion, sure we will buy video games, but I think it would be a very big thing to buy one.