The ESA (Entertainment Software Association) has released their final sales figures for 2008. The video games industry’s official gross income for the year is $22 billion, making it the biggest year for gaming ever.
Game sales made up $11.7 billion dollars of the total, with console hardware bringing in $8.9 billion and portable consoles an extra $2.7 billion.
Game sales increased by 22.9% over 2007, bringing in more revenue than the entire gaming industry (consoles included) managed in 2005.
The ESA attribute a large portion of 2008’s high sales figures to the December period which brought in $5.3 billion alone. This is the first time industry sales have ever breached the $5 million mark in a single month. To put this in perspective, the games industry earned more in December 2008 than it did in the whole of 1997, giving an idea of just how much it has grown in the last ten years.
Sales break down
Console game sales – $8.9 billion (189 million units)
PC game sales – $701 million (29.1 million units)
Portable software sales – $2.1 billion (79.5 million units)
That adds up to 297.6 million computer games sold in 2008.
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