Just like in the 1930's, Republican economic policies have led to another failing economy that puts all Americans at risk.  How will this effect the gaming industry?  Specifically, what is the elactisity games and consoles?  Will people buy less and less games to make up for rising job loses and economic downturns, or will they keep purchasing games and give something else up?

Personally, I will cut a lot of other goods before I cut back on gaming.  Entertainment is a great way to forget about little return investments, low interest savings accounts, and the prospect of no job in the future as every industry has been negatively effected by the economic downturn.  I'll gladly eat a lot of Ramen noodles so that I can play Gears of War 2 on Xbox Live.

I think the economic downturn helps gaming $60.00 for a game you can enjoy for weeks is a bargain. Keeps you home saves on gas.....

I think the downturn will help both MS Arcade version and WII (like it needs it) this christmas cause they are the cheapest

Not much...

I think it will be worse this time around. We haven't really experienced a deep recession yet.

I think it will only really hurt the big ticket items, like over 500 dollars. High def tellys will probably be hit hard as far as entertainment goes. They will def have to come down in price. Consoles I thnk will do fine.

Honestly, I think things will have to get a lot worse before gaming is affected much. Indeed, I believe people will cling to games even more as the economy worsens, as they represent a relatively inexpensive form of entertainment (Hollywood is totally screwed).

Not at all. If anything, sales will continue to be stellar.

Good on MS for launching when they did, because if this gen had only just started, MS and Sony would be screwed.

But in the end I suppose the biggest question is how big a depression its going to be? Late 80s depression, games don't even blink. On the other hand if (as you imply) it becomes a 1930s depression, expect US vg market to totally collapse.

Back in the 30s the movies were popular because of the escapism... videogames work the same way. In short I don't think so.

I do think that bad economic times would help Xbox would gain over PS3, atleast compared to the way things would be during good times. My reasoning is that XBox 360 will be more attractive becase it costs less, a bad economy would delay adoption of blue-ray, and bad economic times makes it cheaper for a country to export goods and more expensive to import goods.

Wii would obviously still dominate.