5. THE WITCHER 2: ASSASSINS OF KINGS Namco Bandai.......................................................360
Week Ending February 25th
The UK games retail market rallied last week thanks to the release of EA’s Mass Effect 3and Capcom’s Street Fighter X Tekken. The pair helped break a two- week decline, generating a 47.9 per cent increase in market value to £17.9m. Unit sales rose 27.2 per cent.
However, the market was down compared to when Mass Effect 2hit shelves in January 2010. UK games retail generated £22.8m that week – almost £5m more than it could manage two years later.
Week Ending March 3rd
That’s not to discredit Mass Effect 3. The space shooter RPG outsold its predecessors’ week-one sales combined and became the biggest No.1 of 2012 so far. It garnered more sales than the previous four No.1s – SSX, UFC 3, Uncharted and Reckoning– combined.
Week Ending March 10th
Other new entries Street Fighter X Tekkenand The Sims 3: Showtimedebuted at No.3 and No.6 respectively. Expect another strong performance for EA next week with continued sales of Mass Effect 3and the arrival of FIFA Street today (Friday, March 16th).
APPLE VS THE REST
How deep is the consumer electronic giant’s TV footprint compared to leading traditional video game publishers?
1000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0
APPLE’S SHADOW over the video games market is there for all to see.
This demonstrates how deep Apple’s TV footprint is, fuelling high demand for iOS products. The extent of Apple’s TV advertising has resulted in it achieving 129 per cent more TVRs than the largest games and consoles advertiser, Nintendo. Furthermore, Apple has recorded 403 per cent more TVRs than EA. One TVR represents one per cent of a target audience. A campaign can achieve over 100 if a viewer sees an ad more than once.
This is no doubt accentuated by the seasonal nature of the games and consoles market, where TV advertising activity is dictated by release dates. Without such restrictions, building brand equity is everything for Apple, and it has already maintained a consistent presence throughout 2012. Only Nintendo has had the portfolio to utilise a similar strategy. All this has been achieved across just two products – the iPad (495 TVRs) and iPhone (450 TVRs). This means both products have had a greater presence than all of Nintendo’s campaigns combined.
6. MEDAL OF HONOR: WARFIGHTER – LIMITED EDITION EA....................................................................................360