DFC predicts $57 billion gaming market in 2009, Wii to drive

The soothsayers at analyst group DFC Intelligence have revised their already rosy outlook for the game industry in 2009, predicting that the market, including consoles, PC and online games, could now reach a mind-blowing $57 billion by next year. DFC foresees that much of this growth will be driven by (surprise!) the Wii, a platform DFC's David Cole feels "has the chance to be one of the best selling systems of all-time."

Looking further ahead, DFC backed off of its previous prediction that annual PS3 game sales would surpass those on the Wii by 2012, now stating that the pair will simply be equals. Still, with the lion's share of top selling titles for the Wii coming from Nintendo itself, fellow analyst Jeremy Miller adds that "for many third party publishers this means they will have much greater success on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, even if Wii sales continue to be strong."

But what of the PC? Oh, there's love there as well, with gaming on the personal computer expected to reach an impressive $19 billion on its own by 2013, no doubt steered by online sales, which exceeded a staggering $7 billion in 2007. If DFC is on point with its prophecy, the future is so bright, we may just have to reach into the drawer for some shades.