Trends

Many trends are becoming popular within the games industry, and are set to evolve even further in the future. Gaming on computers was previously the most dominant aspect of the industry (in the early stages of gaming) but console gaming has recently become hugely popular, with many households having at least one gaming console. The Telegraph's digital and media correspondant, Urmee Khan, says "The research, which surveyed 2,023 people online, highlighted that 39 per cent... had played on a games console in the past six months, compared with 51 per cent of 14-to-25-year-olds." This comment clearly shows that there are still are large amount of adults playing games, whereas the amount of 14 to 25 year olds is extremely high. A popular new aspect to the gaming industry is social networking. Social networking websites (such as Facebook and Myspace) are very popular in modern society and have recently incorporated games into their sites, which are also tipped to become a large aspect of the industry- due to the fact that you can connect with friends and family while playing simple, casual games. Online console gaming is also at an all time high, with the popularity of a game such as Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 where record amounts of people play against each other with online multiplayer.

Motion controllers are set become the next trend that developers are investing in. The Nintendo Wii has become a revolution with it's simplistic motion controller and accessible games, and both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are investing in this new technology (with Project Natal and PS Move respectively).

Bibliography: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/4161928/Videogame-sales-hit-record-high-thanks-to-Nintendo-Wii.html, Urmee Khan, Published: 6:51PM GMT 07 Jan 2009