Great results for H1, no doubt helped by the release of MK Wii, GTA IV, and Wii Fit. We should see another record year for the games industry across Europe this year.

Good, I hope console gaming grows in all Europe. Someday it will become the most important videogames market...

The game-news on golem.de are very xbox/ps3-centric. This article don't mention that the Wii market in germany grows much stronger (around 9%) then the ps3 market. The second place for GTA was about the combined sales from ps3+xbox not only the ps3-gta4.

One could argue that it already has. It sells more hardware than America but less software (I assume attach rates are low from all the casual gamers).

Good for germany.

go MKwii!!!!!
and great for Germany

The press release of GFK says otherwise.

The hardware, is according to VGC like this:

DS: 3.8M
Wii: 1.2M
Ps3: 0.6M
PsP: 1.2M
X360: 0.5M

Total: 7.3M

Compared to last generation:

Ps2: 5.6M
Gamecube: 1.0M
Xbox: 0.8M
GBA: 3.1M

Total: 10.5M


So overall, the market has grown a lot bigger according to VGC too.

But that's mainly because of handhelds.

The total sales last gen was 8.4M for consoles.

Now, perhaps 1/4 through the generation, the total sales are 2.3M. This means that the total sales aren't likely to see more than a tops 15% increase in the console market.

The handheld market has grown insanely though, and will probably see a 100% increase, if not more.

US is still bigger than Europe in units, but by the end of this gen EU should be bigger for sure, however you measure it. Personally, I consider NA & EU roughly the same size now.

+1. Let's hope simultaneous release dates for the future. (Nintendo, if you read this message, It goes for you particularly.)