"Certainly consumers are pulling in their purse strings a little bit, and you can't help when you read the newspapers or listen to the news but hear about companies taking down their forecasts and reducing their headcount," she said. "But we think that the whole entertainment industry, the interactive entertainment business, is poised to weather the storm a lot better than other businesses.

"If you take a look at history and the last recession we had in the US in 2001, the interactive business grew about 43 per cent that year. It's not to suggest that videogames are recession-proof, but what I think we are saying is a couple of things.

"One of them is that even in hard times people want entertainment more than ever before, and videogames offer great value for the money. But also a lot of what the interactive entertainment business is driven by is the cycle of platforms, where you are with the platform, where you are with price points and the titles that are out in the market today.

"Just a month ago NPD said it expects the sales of videogames hardware, software and accessories to rise 23 per cent in 2008 to USD 22 billion, and certainly Xbox is a big driver of that growth thanks to a combination of our new, lower price points, our blockbuster Holiday line-up and industry-leading online service Xbox Live."