A new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that the number of online video game subscribers will more than quadruple between 2005 and 2009, as will online gaming revenues.

The number of online video game subscribers hit 4.4 million in 2004, up from just 400,000 in 2000. The sector will exhibit enormous growth, with subscribers totaling 6.5 million in 2005, 17.1 million in 2007 and 28.5 million by 2009. At that point, 46% of broadband households will contain an online video game subscriber.

Spending on subscriptions is expected to top $3.7 billion by 2009, compared to $647 million in 2004. This will occur even though the average monthly subscription fee will decline steadily over the course of the decade, sitting at $11.00 by 2009, compared to a high of $12.95 in 2002.

Japan, with its considerably smaller population, spends roughly as much on online games as the US, according to data from Nomura Research Institute. It reports that the online gaming market in Japan totaled 77 billion yen in 2004, roughly $700 million. But the PricewaterhouseCoopers projections show the online gaming market growing substantially faster in the US than in Japan. Nomura projects that the Japanese market will reach 200 billion yen, or about $1.8 billion, by 2009, well short of the $3.7 billion projected for the US by PricewaterhouseCoopers.