Kinect
Even with sales shrinking, one analyst sees the video game industry turning the corner this year thanks to Xbox 360 and PS3. Reuters

The gaming market is set to explode with Nintendo driving the other players. With its latest Nintendo 3DS, it is forcing the creators and publishers to up the ante. Four years ago, Nintendo did the same with the motion controlled Wii console. Sony followed with Playstation Move and Microsoft with Kinect. Going by the motion madness one would believe that it was these games that were exciting the players.

It is not so. The best games of 2010 are the ones you play the old fashioned way – on your controller in a chair. Reason is simple enough; the graphics, story lines and excitement offered by them are not matched by the Kinect games.

According to data compiled by NPD, a global research agency, and released by the Entertainment Software Association, about 20 million players have spent 17 billion hours on Xbox Live, which is more than 2 hours for every person on the planet.

Surprisingly, online gaming is somewhat equally divided between genders, at 58 percent male players and 42 percent female players. Some people are bold enough to predict that online gaming may just be the future.

The online gaming market is worth more than $15 billion, with a total of 40 million users who have registered PlayStation Network accounts. This is excluding XBox 360 and PC platform multiplayer games which would increase the numbers a lot.

Since Playstation Network accounts are free, their numbers will definitely be more than Xbox 360 which charges an annual fee. At conservative estimates one can easily put the online gaming population at 75 million.

Here we bring you the most popular games from the PS3, Xbox360 Wii and PC games platform for 2010. The list has been compiled by going through the polls of Game Trailers and GameSpot, two leading game reviewing communities online.

Game Trailers puts Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar), as the winner for Xbox 366 and PS3 in 2010.

For PCs it is Mass Effect 2 (Electronic Arts).

Gamespot winners are Red Dead Redemption for PS3 and Xbox 360 both. For PC, Star craft; Wings of Liberty.

Other games which did well in 2010 are: Rock Band 3, (MTV games), Halo: Reach (Microsoft), Vanquish, Call Of Duty: Black Ops, Nier, and Super Meat Boy.

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