DVD sales are slipping while video games and their tie-ins are seeing record consumption, reports Ars Technica, leading Ben Kuchera to suggest that video games will replace DVDs on many retail shelves. With even grandmothers now going Wii wild, video games are no longer just the realm of teens and young single males, he writes, despite much higher retail prices than competing DVDs.
Games are capitalizing on a physical and social dimension—users can gather in homes and bars to play games like Guitar Hero or the Nintendo Wii together. Kuchera also says the DVD high-definition format wars are turning off DVD consumers. “I think we'll see not only record-breaking revenues but record-breaking year-over-year growth when the final numbers are tallied," says one analyst of 2007 game sales. (More video games stories.)