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Game sales buck the recession with 13% growth in January

Video games sales remain strong. Clearly people are spending money on something.

Dave Rosenberg Co-founder, MuleSource
Dave Rosenberg has more than 15 years of technology and marketing experience that spans from Bell Labs to startup IPOs to open-source and cloud software companies. He is CEO and founder of Nodeable, co-founder of MuleSoft, and managing director for Hardy Way. He is an adviser to DataStax, IT Database, and Puppet Labs.
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Dave Rosenberg
While it's clear that nothing is truly recession-proof, video games are doing a heck of a job trying to buck the trend.

Market research firm NPD Group reported that software and hardware combined reached $1.33 billion in revenue for the month, a 13 percent jump over $1.18 billion in January 2008. Nintendo continues to dominate with Xbox 360 making a very impressive showing.

January Software Statistics:
1. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) - 777K
2. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) - 415K
3. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) - 292K
4. Left 4 Dead (Valve/EA, Xbox 360) - 243K
5. Call of Duty: World at War (Treyarch/Activision, Xbox 360) - 235K
6. Skate 2 (EA Black Box/EA, Xbox 360) - 199K
7. Guitar Hero: World Tour (Neversoft/Activision, Wii) - 155K
8. New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, NDS) - 135K
9. Mario Kart DS (Nintendo, NDS) - 132K
10. Lord of the Rings: Conquest (Pandemic/EA, Xbox 360) - 113K

January Hardware Statistics:
Wii - 679.2K
Nintendo DS - 510.8K
Xbox 360 - 309.0K
PlayStation 3 - 203.2K
PSP - 172.3K
PlayStation 2 - 101.2K

I would argue that this trend can continue for a while--none of the consoles have full market penetration and games remain a (relatively) cheap form of entertainment.

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