The U.S. recession (or near recession, depnding on who you talk to) is starting to slow growth in lots of areas of the economy.  So far, games has not been hurt (though the numbers could be even bigger if the money was flowing).

 Question of the week then:

 How bad does the economy have to be before we see slowdown in the sales of consoles?  Software?  Or can nothing stop the gaming train right now?  And is any one area of gaming/console/etc. going to be a winner or loser because of the slumping economy?

I know personally my gaming spending has been way lower this year than last because of things like gas prices and grocery prices eating up my extra cash.  I've bought only 2 games and pretty much no DLC since the holidays, whereas last year I'd probable bought 3 or 4 times as much.

Any thoughts?

I would expect the industry to suffer at some point depending on how bad it gets.

Yes it is... just like the drug industry... people need their fix no matter what...

But unlike drugs, games don't get used up.  You ca always play em again/trdae/play multiplayer/etc.

I think it could damage things like wii fit - expensive add ons (although I'd still expect it to be a hit).

Combined with the falling dollar, it's likely to hurt the PS3 in America.

 yeah, and it'll also hurt the 360 because people can't afford to keep buying new ones and/or shipping them back to Microsoft.

I kid, I kid.

OT: the recession will hurt the games industry just like everything else. However, based on the industry's performance so far this year, I suspect its effects will be restricted to merely making the VG industry's growth slightly less explosive than it would otherwise.

/Political Rant\

I, for one, don't think the US economy is in such a horrible recession, or trending to it, as many people in the Media think it is. Is it worse than it has been? Yes. Is it going to be worse now than it has been in a long time? No. I think it's mostly news journalists wanting a hot story, and less to do with the actual American economy.

Now, having said that, I don't see the market weakening even if there is a recession. According to NPD analyists, the Gaming Industry has been on a breakneck pace since this generation fully started with the Wii/PS3, and even if it stagnated for a few months, the market would still be setting records daily.

And secondly, one just needs to look at the Japanese recessions, and economic difficulties that they've had for many, many years: Despite recessions, bank problems, and everything else, video games are still, and have been booming for nearly a decade now. There have been market transitions sure (ie, the casual DS revolution), but I don't really see any major VGC Japanese charts that tend to be REALLY bad thanks to recessions in Japan.

And finally: should the US economy do bad, and somehow the games market take a hit, there is just too much good going on worldwide to really damage the industry in some sort of way: Europe is breaking records, Japan is re-asserting good sales, and we're seeing all the tetriary markets of "others" do very well like Korea, Taiwan, Austrailia and the others. And great gains there are more than enough to keep the VG market going for a good while, even if by some reason, the US economy did start sucking: I don't really remember people stop buying Playstations when 9/11 hit us, and the Dow Jones was down 1,300+pts in a day (in fact, that Christmas, PS2's were going for over $1,000 USD on Ebay).

No entertainment industry is recession proof, essentials come before anything else so the less people make the less they'll spend on extras like games.

The economic slowdown has hit harder in some areas (ie Ohio, Michigan) of the US than others but I don't think it will affect the gaming industry too badly. Especially when you consider the games being released this year. People are going to buy Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid and Mario Kart games no matter what but people might start purchasing fewer games.. which would probably discourage developers from new ips.

I think it won't have a negative impact... though it may effect where money is spent.

Could be good news for the handhelds... Wii really won't be affected considering it has supply problems as it is... PS3 may be hurt as I imagine it will hurt blu-ray adoption as people will rather pay less for the same movie when they have less disposable income... also being the most expensive system dosen't help.

360... who can say. It's pretty cheap now... the quality concerns may hurt though as people will want something reliable.