if you're looking for a hint as to where EA thinks the global videogame market is headed, look no further than their recent acquisition of Facebook all-stars Playfish. The company is convinced that not only will their investments in the digital market pay off in 2010, but that online games will soon surpass the packaged goods side of the industry.Speaking with Reuters, EA CEO John Riccitiello talked up the digital games business:
"When people think of games, they traditionally think, in the U.S., of what sells on the Xbox, the PlayStation, and the Wii, and they forget about all these online services that are out there subscription, microtransactions, games they find on Facebook, or if they go to Pogo, or if they play Warhammer Online, or they download games, or they get them by way of their mobile phone or their iPhone. And if you add all that stuff up, it's almost half the industry now. It's about 40 to 45 percent. Next year it's likely to be the larger share of the total industry and it'll be bigger than the console games all put together."
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