It appears that gaming is recession proof with the latest sales reports showing that consumers are piling into stores in droves to buy the latest Nintendo Wii, Playstation and Xbox games.
Sales of consoles and video game software leapt by 57 per cent in the USA to $1.7 billion in March, as compared with last year, confounding analysts who had expected that wider economic woes may have been taking a toll on consumer electronics spending.
Nintendo's Wii console was the strongest performing console, shifting 721,000 units - an increase of 67 per cent on February, according to figures from NPD Group. Sales of video game software, meanwhile, rose by 63 per cent on the same period a year ago to $945.6 million, far surpassing analyst expectations.
"You'd never know that the US economy was under distress by looking at the video games industry sales figures," Anita Frazie, an NPD analyst, said.
