State of Play: Game on through the crisis

Despite the current Global Recession (or as the UK media would have it the much less worrying-sounding Credit Crunch) 2008 was still the biggest year ever for the video games industry. Propelled by the ongoing success of Nintendo worldwide the market has continued to expand. Companies may be going bust left and right and people are losing their jobs but it seems to be salad days for gaming markets as people look fore entertainment to escape the gloom. Or more accurately it's good times for some in the gaming industry- for while Xbox 360 had it's best year to date and Wii and DS have sold in ridiculous amounts, sales fell across the board for all PlayStation formats (PS2, PS3 and PSP), and gaming behemoth EA posted massive losses. The UK has now officially overtaken Japan to become the second biggest gaming market in the world and more than 50% of total software sold last year was on a Nintendo format. How the tables have turned.

On a purely personal level the most satisfying statistic among those that have been released about last year is that after all the massive hype about the enormous sales Grand Theft Auto IV racked up (described as 'the biggest entertainment launch ever' by several sources) the biggest selling game of last year was.... er Mario Kart Wii. Sales of GTA were very impressive but Mario won. Not only was Kart my personal fave of the year but I also find something reassuring that more people would rather take to the track with the plucky plumber than nick a car and shoot a prostitute. Or maybe I'm just going soft