The Games People Play: Hot new products will help revive chip sales. (Forecast: Consumer Electronics).

Electronic Business, December, 2001 by Lazar, Gerald

Consumer electronics has been a relative bright spot this year and the industry is positioned to stay healthy as long as consumers have disposable income and the confidence to spend it--an admittedly iffy caveat right now. A stream of attractive new products has emerged, as virtually all things analog have been digitized--from board games to photographs to music.

Video game consoles--a huge driver of the semiconductor market--are entering a new era. Brian O'Rourke, senior analyst at Cahners In-Stat Group, calls the year ended in November 2001 "the most significant 12 months in the history of the business" as Sony (Playsation 2), Nintendo (Game Cube) and Microsoft (Xbox) all introduced major new products. O'Rourke expects these platforms to battle it...

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