Dubai: The demand for gaming consoles is robust in the UAE despite the downturn and 2009 is expected to see a 7.4 per cent rise in unit sales compared to last year, a top official at Jacky's Electronics said.
"Sales trends have been quite positive but the biggest issue has been regular supply through official sources with regular shortages happening for much of the year, which could have an impact on expected growth," Jimmy Patel, General Manager, Jacky's Electronics, said.
Consoles expected to be sold in 2009 are put at 404,344 compared to 376,464 in 2008 while the total sale value in 2009 is expected to increase by 2.39 per cent to $74,057 (Dh 272,065) compared to $72,326 in 2008.
Quoting GfK's research report he said, long-term growth is expected to be 10-15 per cent per annum in unit sales but some of this could be eaten into with convergence of other devices being used as portable gaming consoles in future, such as mobile or smartphone devices.
Many major software houses are already developing games for release on devices such as the iPhone, Nokia and Blackberry platforms.
According to David Cole, analyst at DFC Intelligence, the global market for portable and mobile games is expected to increase to $11.7 billion by 2014.
The primary driver of this growth is expected to be the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch systems. By 2014, sales for games on the iPhone/iPod Touch are expected to account for about 24 per cent of total portable game software sales.
"As for Jacky's, we've seen a fairly steady figures and our brand-wise mix of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft is fairly similar to that of the UAE market trend," Patel said.
Policies revised
He said in the fourth quarter, Jacky's expect to see a lot of disruption here as it has been towards end-August, September or even October when most brands have revised their policies.
For example, Sony launched the PS3 Slim towards the end of August and Nintendo dropped their prices for the first time for the Wii just a few weeks ago. We should see what impact this has in the key festive months ahead, he said.
The top five games this year are Halo3, FIFA '09, Infamous, ProEvolution Soccer 2009 and TNA (Wrestling).
Consoles expected to be sold in 2010 are expected to increase by 10 per cent to 444,778 with a sale value of $74,797.
"The portable systems from Nintendo and Sony are still expected to lead the market, but it appears growth for these devices has peaked. The platforms from Apple are expected to be responsible for the bulk of market growth over the next few years," Cole said.
He said Wii is expected to be the number one selling console system of this generation. "The Wii has the chance to be one of the best selling systems of all time. However, that does not mean the other systems will not do well. The Sony PS3 is expected to equal the Wii in annual software sales by 2012. Meanwhile, the Microsoft Xbox 360 remains a leading player in some of the top markets, most notably the US and UK.
