According to research firm Newzoo, 183.5 million US gamers aged eight and up spent $25.3 billion on video games during 2009, most of which were for consoles. Sales for systems such as the Xbox 360 and PS3 made up 60% of the total (over $15 billion).

PC games claimed a distant second with 16% ($4.2b), online game portals made up 11% ($2.8b), MMOs claimed 8% ($2.1b), and mobile sales made up 4% ($1.1b) of the entire budget. Other countries in the survey shared a similar divide, except Germany, whose gamers spent 42% (€1.5b) of their dough on console titles and 36% (€1.3b) on PC games.


Interestingly, Newzoo found that 46% of US game revenue went toward used titles and online models, including subscriptions, virtual currency, microtransactions, and digital distribution – that leaves 54% for freshly minted retail games. You can skim through the summary here (PDF) or pay €299 for the full report at GamesIndustry.com.