JAN. 20, 2010 • By the end of 2009, the Interactive Gaming & Entertainment Association (iGEA) reported 2.5 million Nintendo DS, 1.7 million Wiis, 850,000 Xbox 360s, and 770,000 PS3s had been sold to date in Australia. Thirty percent of all PlayStation 3 sales occurred after the release of the $499 (AUD) Slim model in September. For 2009, iGEA said the Australian video games industry posted $2.05 billion in total sales, a 4% increase over 2008. The rate of growth for the previous two years was 47.6% and 43.2% respectively. In related news, on Jan. 27 Nintendo Co. Ltd. said 11.3 million Wiis were sold worldwide during the 2009 Christmas quarter, an increase of 8% over the previous year.

Impact: Australia is struggling with many of the same issues as the rest of the world.  However, after major growth in both 2007 and 2008 it is somewhat surprising that 2009 was a fairly steady year in terms of consumer spending.  The performance in Australia is more similar to European markets, where Nintendo still dominates with a very close race between the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.  In North America, the Xbox 360 has a bigger lead over the PS3.  Australia is a small country with only about 21 million people, but as we have reported in the past, it has one of the highest per capita game spending rates.  We expect that when the final tally is done Australia could come out as number one per capita in spending on console systems in 2009.