Survey Shows Top Game Businesses Make $25 Billion

DFC Intelligence, a market research firm who specializes in videogame and interactive entertainment data, has released a report on the market leaders in the video game hardware and software industry. According to their findings, the top seventeen companies listed in the 750-page report collectively generated $24.5 billion USD in revenue during fiscal year 2004. The top four companies at the list were Nintendo, Electronic Arts, and the games-related divisions of Sony and Microsoft; three of the companies earned their place by way of being console manufacturers in addition to software publishers, with a licensing cut of every game sold for the respective platforms, while Electronic Arts makes it into the top four on sheer software sales. The top four together made up $16.7 billion of the $25 billion in revenues; Sony leads the four in pure revenue, though Nintendo comes out on top in terms of profit. The abstract of the report gives multi-year accounts of each company's pure revenue, but does not make direct comparisons between the 2004 earnings in specific. The full 750-page report is available from DFC Intelligence and covers each of the top 17 game publishers' financial history and performance, as well as their future potential.