According to a new report from DFC Intelligence, executives in the interactive entertainment industry believe that the video game business is poised for record growth over the next several years.

The report, Executive Interview Series: The State of the Game Market 2002, is based on interviews DFC conducted with some of the leading executives in the video game industry.

A primary topic of the interviews was the market potential for the leading new game systems, the Sony PlayStation 2, the Microsoft Xbox, the Nintendo GameCube and the Game Boy Advance. Surprisingly, the executives were in almost universal agreement that all four of these platforms would be successful over the next several years.

According to David Cole, the president of DFC Intelligence and author of the report, "We have been doing these reports for six years now and never had we had such a strong consensus of opinion. Almost everyone believes the game industry will have unprecedented growth and that there is room for at least three hardware platforms to build market share."

Nevertheless, the interviewees also thought there would be a substantial difference in market share among the video game platforms. The PlayStation 2 was the almost unanimous favorite among industry insiders to be the market share leader. The general consensus was that in the U.S., the PS2 would capture a market share of about 50%, with the Xbox and GameCube splitting the remainder roughly equally. On a worldwide basis, the PS2 was predicted to have an even greater market share.

The interviews also went into significant detail about the problems of rising development and marketing costs, the potential for wireless games, PC and console online games and which companies are likely to be the winners and losers over the next several years.

The new report is available from DFC Intelligence. Qualified media can register at www.dfcint.com to request a copy of the report. DFC Intelligence is a research firm focused on interactive and digital entertainment. DFC recently published the 800-page report, The U.S. Market for Video Games and Interactive Electronic Entertainment and announced that the 2002 version of The Online Game Market (400 pages) will ship on the first of June. For more information contact go to the DFC Web site at www.dfcint.com.
 

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