The gaming market is undergoing a revolution.  Globally, it is bigger than Hollywood and nowadays, three-quarters of Australians are regular[1] gamers.  As expected, the percentage is higher among young people, but even so 67% of those aged between 50-64 claim to play some form of gaming on a regular basis.  This figure has experienced rapid growth in the past five years.  So, why has gaming suddenly become so much more attractive?

The Nintendo Wii can take a lot of the credit for the popularisation of gaming.  It opened up gaming to non-geeks – you no longer have to be an RPG geek to pick up a controller and join in.  Wii now leads the market with more than double (14%) the share commanded by Xbox (5%) or PlayStation (8%). 

But Sony and Microsoft are hitting back, launching their own motion sensor platforms that claim to take the experience to the next level.  Motion-sensor technology has also ushered in multiplayer gaming to the broader market, providing a more tactile and fun experience.  Multi-player gaming will continue to grow, with mobile capability, improved broadband speeds and the appearance of social gaming networks.  Apple has announced plans to join the social gaming fray with a social network gaming centre for the iPhone OS4.  Linking with the App Store’s 50,000 gaming titles and iTunes’ membership base it will have tens of millions of potential gaming participants to draw upon.

Mobile gaming has been opened up by the smartphone revolution also – participants no longer need a specialised device in order to game.  We expect to see gaming capabilities move up the pecking order as an influencer of future mobile handset purchase.

Gaming, whether at home on the console or PC or while out’n’about on the mobile, is now mainstream.  It is almost equally as popular amongst young females as males, and older generations aren’t far behind.   Multi-player gaming sessions on consoles can now last several hours at a time and it’s not just the PC purists doing it, but groups of families and friends also.  Hardware manufacturers are jumping on the multiplayer bandwagon as a means of driving gaming further into the lounge room and the mobile space. 

Apple’s Game Center is expected to be a hit with the more casual type of gamer as iPhone games are skewed towards titles that are light and not very time consuming.  These types of players will not be familiar with online multi-player features such as matchmaking so it’ll be interesting to see if they do get hooked on the social gaming tools offered by Apple’s Game Center. 

This, together with Sony and Microsoft’s motion sensor platforms, set the scene for continued growth and will put gaming back on the Christmas wishlist for 2010.  

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[1] Play some form of gaming on a monthly or greater basis.

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