Square Enix: 2008 To Be Record Games Year For Japan

2008 will be third record-breaking year on the trot for games in Japan, according to Square Enix's president, Yoichi Wada.

Wada, who is also also chairman of Japanese industry body the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA), said that revenues are likely to exceed 700 billion yen (£3.28 billion) at a group luncheon. "The market conditions are very favorable to growth for software makers worldwide", he said. "There are a lot of good titles out there helping to expand the market.''

2007 beat 2006 in terms of revenue by an impressive 9.9% in Japan. Combined hardware and software sales were up to 687.7 billion yen (£3.2 billion).

Industry tracker Enterbrain's CEO, Hirokazu Hamamura, supported Wada, saying, "The industry sales forecast is very realistic'', He also stated that he believes soon every family in Japan will own a piece of gaming hardware.

So, Wada's saying something the whole games industry can get behind, unlike in early December when he might have trodden on a few toes. He told the world that the Wii is seen as a toy and Sony's confused about what sort of machine it's producing with the PS3.

^{Source: Bloomberg}