U.S. video game industry growth to slow in 2008

The video game industry has had a pretty good growth spurt over the past few years. However, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has given word that the growth is expected to slow down this year. Apparently, it has something to do with a decrease in the hardware sales as compared to previous years.

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The last few years were pretty good for the video game industry. However, we all knew that this wouldn’t last forever. According to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the growth is expected to slow down this year.

The overall U.S. video game industry sales have been predicted to rise by 13% this year. While that’s still a good number, it is far less than the 22% increase that was experienced from 2006 to 2007.

The slower growth is attributed to the fact that people have gotten over the excitement of new consoles. It might be interesting to know that hardware sales jumped 50 percent to US$ 6.6 billion back in 2007. However, it has been predicted that it will shrink to US$ 6.4 billion dollars this year.

This year might not be the year for hardware, but software is expected to receive a nice boost. While it might not be enough to cancel out the slower hardware sales. It will be increasing by a significant number. Here’s what CEA spokeswoman Jennifer Bemisderfer has to say about it:

Software (in 2007 had) phenomenal growth, riding the wave of hugely successful title launches such as Halo 3, Guitar Hero III (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PC) , and Rock Band (PS3, Xbox 360). In fact, the focus for 2008 will be in the software category, where CEA estimates a 26 percent increase in sales over 2007.

Via Reuters