The industry will make a lot of money. In rough times, entertainment does pretty well and the industry provides some of the best bang-per-buck in terms of how much you spend per hour in entertainment.
However, the high costs of next generation games ($60!) will mean you will see a handful of titles that do well and dozens more that were expected to see good numbers just by over saturating the market during the holidays, not really do that great.
Will people spend $60 on games? Yes. But how many $60 games will they buy? Will people really spend that all on Dead Space, Fable II, Little Big Planet, Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, Socom, Call of Duty, Prince of Persia, etc.?
B-titles that usually put up decent numbers, like Saint's Row 2 and Mortal Kombat, probably have more to worry about than the big AAA releases.
There will be growth in the industry this year, but they will have to curb expectations. Before I left was fired, I was already seeing lower-income customers cancel reservations and cash trade-ins (arguably the worst value for your games ever) went up exponentially. I'd have to tell people to come back later 'till there was enough money in the register.
Tieno, that's ridiculous. Nintendo will make a killing - its games and system are cheaper, and the brand has never been more powerful. The next generation systems have a lot more to worry about. Never before has the gap between $400 and $250 seemed so wide.
