Consoles do well by playing the game

Sony?s European CEO, Chris Deering, has predicted continued growth for the console market and claimed spending on interactive entertainment would exceed that on movies by 2001, in the first keynote speech at this week?s ECTS.

He said Playstation had penetrated five per cent of video-owning homes, with sales of about four million units. But it is expected to have sold over six million units by early next year.

He claimed the average user was just over 20 years old, and that sales were growing fastest in the over 30 and under 13 age groups. The average spend was seven software titles per machine which is expected to continue to increase as the market expands.

Dismissing that there was conflict with the PC games market, Deering said it had further stimulated console growth and was not a competitor.

He said the strength of consoles was their simplicity ? a precondition for the leisure market, allowing genuine plug-and-play.

Deering claimed the reasons for the PC?s weakness in the games market were the decreasing life cycle of hardware and the increasing customisation of PCs. He said the main reasons for buying a PC were work, education, internet access and finally games.

On threats to publishing from the internet, Deering highlighted parallels with pre-recorded music, claiming that radio and tape technology should have effectively removed the market for music in the 1960s.

His views were reinforced by a report from independent analyst Datamonitor, which predicted a $2.4 billion market for console software next year. But the company said this will be the peak, after which the market will be eroded by competition from the PC. It also puts Sony?s predicted market share at 59 per cent.