The Diffusion Group: Portable Game Console Market

The Diffusion Group has released a series of reports focusing on the portable gaming market. The firm found that "portable game consoles (PGCs) such as Sony's PSP and Nintendo's GameBoy Advance will be among the strongest areas of growth in the global gaming industry in the next five years. While this market is becoming increasingly important to hardware and software vendors, very little is understood about consumer usage models or how this rapidly evolving market will play out over the next few years."

Michael Greeson at The Diffusion Group said, "Portable game consoles were once thought of as just an interesting experiment, a way for incumbent console vendors to fill the sales gap between new hardware releases and help keep the brand in the public eye during cyclical lulls. Of course, with close to 100 million units sold worldwide since 2001, PGCs have long since ceased playing second-fiddle to their in-home console brethren."

Greeson added, "PGCs have evolved from gaming-only platforms to portable multimedia powerhouses. Over the next few years, they will increasingly become a substitution or replacement threat to both converged multimedia players and application-specific platforms such as digital music players."