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Video Games: UK's top entertainment form

6 November 2008 19:28 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 2 comments

According to research by retail experts, video games will prove to be Britain's number one form of entertainment in 2008, beating music and other video products for the first time. Verdict Research predicts the video games market will grow by �1.37 billion ($2.19 billion), about 42% in 2008. The figure outstrips music and video sales which were expected to stagnate anyway.

The entire video games market in the UK is valued at about �4.64 billion ($7.42 billion), compared to music and video at �4.46 billion ($7.13 billion). "The music and video market is not just suffering from a slowing of growth but a massive transfer of spend to online," said the report's author Malcolm Pinkerton. "So in actual fact, the sales via high street shops are being hit a lot harder than the overall growth figures would suggest."

The report claimed that the music market gained revenue from sales of digital downloads but was hurt by growing piracy, price deflation and a decline in physical CD sales. "Games represent a relatively cheap, but also exciting and innovative pastime," said Matthew Piner, author of the Video Games and Consoles Retailing report. "As more people save money by staying in, a video game, although it may cost three of four times as much as a DVD or CD, offers much more longevity and hence better value for money."

The Entertainment Retailers Association agreed that the games sector had a great year, but took issue with the figures. It points out that the videogame figures include both hardware and software units sold. "So to compare like with like, you'd have to add in DVD players and CD players," said ERA spokesman Steve Redmond.

Permalink to this article | Topic: Consoles

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ZippyDSM (AfterDawn Addict) 7 November 2008 8:15
Video games is a growing market with no ends in sight just yet, as stagnation grows and fads/trends dwindle it will be hit hard from trying to sell the same level of crap to uninterested masses...but they have a way to go yet... And music is not harmed by, at least not enough to make it drop to its knees its business model is dieing and they are wanking off like nothing has changed. Also gaming is not cheap and bad/mediocre games have less "longevity" than a bad/mediocre movie, the way the game market works they sale high to retail outfits that then "move around" the stock and then bleed it off wholesale when it becomes "worthless" compound that with the high price to the end user that are able to buy s much buy selling off their old games...its a nasty setup that when it hits it peak will be nothing but bottom past that.... [ + quote]
emugamer (Member) 7 November 2008 12:28
The fact that these "retail experts" included hardware in the figures for video games tells me that they shouldn't be called "experts" at all. Morons like this should be fired for spewing garbage statistics for the public. [ + quote]