Sales of packaged software has been declining for many years now thanks to the Internet evolution. According to chief executive officer of the world’s largest video game publisher, digital game sales will surpass those of traditional packaged games already next year in terms of revenue.

“When people think of games, they traditionally think, in the U.S., of what sells on the Xbox, the PlayStation, and the Wii, and they forget about all these online services that are out there. If you add all that stuff up, it is almost half the industry now. It is about 40% to 45%. Next year it is likely to be the larger share of the total industry and it will be bigger than the console games all put together,” said John Riccitiello, chief executive officer of Electronic Arts, in an interview with Reuters news agency.

Obviously, a huge chunk of digital video games industry is represented by phones for various mobile phones, portable game consoles and so on; another huge part of the market are online sales of video games for various non-portable systems; yet another part of the market are sales of PC games.

Even though sales of packaged games have declined this year due to global economic recession, sales of entertainment software for mobile phones are on the rise, partly due to their relatively low cost. No surprise that they are gaining popularity amid the economic slump and are likely to become even more popular next year.

Tags: Electronic Arts