JupiterResearch announced that the US game console market will generate cumulative revenues of $66 billion through 2012. According to a new report, "US Console Games Forecast, 2007 to 2012," competition for console households over the next five years will be fiercer than ever and will result in a close sharing of the installed base of systems among platform suppliers.

JupiterResearch anticipates the competitive field will be much closer than in the past; at the end of the current cycle in 2012, the range in market shares is projected to just under 10 percent as compared to the 33 percent range in market shares at the end of the last cycle in 2005.

“Each platform supplier brings a special set of strengths to the market and to competition in current generation of systems,” said Michael Gartenberg, Vice President and Research Director at JupiterResearch. “On top of that we have seen a dramatic rise in the proportion multiplatform releases from independent publishers over previous generations. This is no longer the winner-takes-all market of the past.”

Despite this fierce battle among platform suppliers, the report contends that the market is will remain strong through the remainder of the system cycle. Console market revenue growth will reach a high of $12.8 billion in 2007 when new platform sales are strongest. And, in 2008 JupiterResearch expects US household penetration to surpass the 50 percent mark.

“Over the last five years the market has steadily added a small number of additional households," said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch. "That the industry has continued to sustain growth—despite reaching such high levels—is a testament to the continued innovation by software producers and hardware manufacturers.”