In September the Xbox 360, which was launched in late 2005, a year ahead of its two rivals, was overtaken by the Wii as the most popular of the present generation of consoles (see chart).
Call of Duty has dominated the console sales charts for the last four years, with only the major sports titles (Fifa worldwide and Madden in the US), Halo and Grand Theft Auto getting close.
These will include everything from televisions and gaming consoles (see chart 3) to coffee machines and cookers.This has led researchers such as Ms Bell to conclude that ubiquitous computing, or "ubicomp" to its fans, is no longer the realm of science fiction.
These days, the most popular games can rack up sales of more than $100m in their first few days in the shops.The games business goes through a cycle every six years or so, as one generation of consoles succeeds another (see chart 2).
It has map-and-chart tables, consoles of electronic equipment, redundant radars.
A game typically costs $50, around $10 of which is passed from publisher to console-maker as a licence fee.The result is a regular "console cycle", as one generation succeeds the next (see chart).
The console is six years old and, according to a chart by the NPD, has never seen a down year in the states.
Its studio Chair Entertainment is also behind Infinity Blade, which is an almost console quality iOS game that broke records and topped the charts through the Christmas season.
The Wii became the best-selling console of its generation, beating both Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 (see chart).But casual gamers tended to spend less on games than the more dedicated players with Microsoft and Sony machines.
9 out of the top 10 top-selling console titles are from Nintendo, and their numbers dwarf the others, according to this official-looking chart from VGChartz.
