Well, the thing is, videogames are a global biz, and global biz seems to be doing fine. Yes, some Eurobanks got clobbered, but the EU banking system is heavily regulated and basically sound. The rest of the world is still booming -- India, China and Russia are growing like mad. And here in the US, gaming is still affordable - handhelds will boom, sales of the PS2 and Wii should get one final boost from cash-short consumers who want a world-class gaming experience, and cell gaming is taking off.
That said... it's true the US economy is hitting a wall. I know many VGChartz posters aren't from the US and may not realize just how bad things are getting here, but let me tell you, this is NOT some minor recession. The US has endured thirty years of Wall Street greed, titanic income polarization (superrich getting richer, middle class getting squeezed), and a massive housing bubble, all financed by behemoth current account deficits. Basically, the US borrowed tons of money from China, Russia and other creditors, and bought a bunch of houses with it, which is crazy. Making matters even worse, instead of investing in education and science, we spend one trillion dollars every year on warfare. (Not a typo. The real amount.) This is insane -- and unsustainable. Kojima's Metal Gear Solid 4 gave us the warning: stop this Guns of the Patriots madness, or else your whole society will go down the drain.
Bottom line: unless the US puts away the guns and fixes its internal problems, the center of the videogame industry is going to shift to Europe (including Russia), and East Asia (including China) -- regions of the world which managed their economies better, which have public broadband, and whose currencies are backed by economies which rely on factories and civilian investment, not bogus bubbles and wasteful military-industrial crony capitalism.
