While you can’t turn on any news program and not hear talk about how the US is either in or on the verge of a recession, and while retailers across the country are reporting record losses, analysts have today announced that the videogame industry is continuing to post record growth. They even went as far as to call the industry ‘recession proof.’

“The video game industry continues to post record growth and although no leisure/entertainment sector can be considered ‘recession proof,’ the video game industry continues to prove to be one of the very few industries to have the least elasticity to the current economic environment.”

Everyone’s favorite Wedbush Morgan securities analyst Michael Pachter continued the sentiment by predicting a continuation of current growth trends. “We currently forecast full year growth of 19%, but think our estimate may be conservative, particularly if software [average sales prices] and PS2 sales remain strong throughout the year. Our estimate presumes that ASPs will increase slightly for the year, but January and February’s ASP was up 20%, implying that our estimate may be too low,” Pachter said.