Of that $22 billion, $11.7 billion was on software alone according to the ESA, a 22.9% increase on 2007.

The economic downturn did not affect peoples Christmas spending with $5.3 billion of the $22 billion (24%) spent in December alone, breaking the previous record of $5 billion in a single month.

It is an even more impressive considering in 1997 the industry generated $5.1 billion in total over the entire year.

"The $11.7 billion in software sales generated in 2008 is more than total industry revenues were in 2005," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst of The NPD Group, "In 2005, when the current console generation began to be introduced, the top 20 games of the year accounted for 9 percent of total unit sales. Today, the top 20 account for 15 percent of total unit sales."

2008 saw the introduction of more family-friendly video games and Games rated "T" for "Teen" accounted for 26.7% of sales compared to 15.9 for "Mature (M)" games.

This change in focus is easily noticeable in the number of sales of the family-friendly Nintendo Wii console across three continents that we reported about earlier today.

The ESA via Joystiq.