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Nintendo’s Wii accounted for 47 per cent of the global home console market in 2009, according to a report from Ibis Capital.
Gamasutra reports that of the remainder, Xbox 360 claimed 35 per cent of the market and PS3 just 18 per cent. Total global console revenues hit $30bn.
Looking ahead, Ibis reckons the worldwide console market will hit $40bn by 2013 thanks to further growth in North America and Europe and the expected arrival, in Ibis’ eyes at least, of a new generation of consoles.
The report does add, however, that unless they adapt all three platform holders face significant challenges in the years ahead: Digital downloadable content and game delivery reduce likelihood of a ninth generation console cycle, creating potentially significant long term issues for Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and GameStop.”
Elsewhere in the report, Ibis estimates that the typical development cost of a current-gen game on Xbox 360 or PS3 now sits at around $15-$30m, meaning most titles have to sell between 500k and 1m units just to break even.
In comparison, the average dev cost of a PS2, Xbox or GameCube title was around $5m-$7m.
