Video games sales will grow to $35.8 billion a year by 2007, fuelled by major advances in online gaming thanks to broadband, and in wireless gaming thanks to new mobile phone technologies, according to PricewaterhouseCooper.

It forecasts an 11 per cent compound rate, significantly ahead of the growth rate for the global entertainment and media industry as a whole, which is expected to grow at a compound rate of some 4.8 per cent over the same period.

Even at $35.8 billion, however, the video games industry represents a mere drop in the ocean of entertainment and media - with the market as a whole set to be worth $1.4 trillion in 2007.

As with all such reports, these figures deserve to be taken with a healthy pinch of salt; we note that PWC isrecording the North American video games market in 2002 as being worth $7.8 billion, whereas official figures state that US video games sales topped $10 billion last year.

The full report, which focuses heavily on North America but does include a global overview of the markets covered, can be purchased from PricewaterhouseCoopers for the princely sum of $495.

© gamesindustry.biz