Sony PlayStation, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and other gaming consoles have introduced a new level of superior gaming to the South African market.

This has led to an evolution of console games that will translate into R1-billion in spending by gamers by 2015, according to a report.

"The South African online games market is relatively small because of low broadband penetration. However, as the appetite for broadband develops among households, this online segment is expected to grow more rapidly than other video games," Vicki Myburgh, of consultancy PwC, said yesterday.

A driver of online gaming is growth in the use of broadband because most games require a broadband connection to be played effectively.

The use of broadband in South Africa has grown by about 50% over the past two years, but penetration remains low, at only 600000 households.

The number of online video-game subscribers almost doubled to 85000 from 45000 in 2008.

It was revealed in PwC's South African Entertainment and Media Outlook 2011-2015 that digital distribution of content was emerging as an important segment of the online market.

Players can use consoles to play against competitors online and download additional game content to enhance their play.

Online gaming on social network sites like Facebook is growing exponentially, with free social games such as FarmVille reaching tens of millions of gamers globally.

Aggregate spending on online games is expected to increase from R78-million in 2010 to R241-million in 2015, the report said.

"We expect the number of broadband household subscribers to increase almost five-fold, to 2.85-million, by 2015. However, the penetration of online players is likely to decrease from 14.2% in 2010 to 10.5% in 2015."