Online gaming market is large and growing

In a recent PC magazine article quoting stats from a research firm, about 9% of the 2002 Internet traffic was due to online gaming, and online subscriptions will bring in an estimated $US 650 million annually in five years. The report states that while free online services will grow, it’ll be the pay-for-play services that will really take off. The report states that by 2005 most consoles will be playing subscription based games. Microsoft’s Xbox Live currently has 350,000 subscribers, up 100,000 from Jan. 1st. each paying an estimated $10/month (though everyone is still running on the $US 50, 1 year introductory fee). And this on a paltry 10 titles with only cable or DSL subscribers. It’ll be interesting to see when PS2 and GameCube start to get bigger numbers. Still, it looks like there’s real money on the table.