5. Far Cry 3 – Insane Edition Ubisoft.............................................................................360
Week Ending May 19th
The UK games market’s value took a slight dip, with retail sales generated £10.5m for the week ending May 26th. That’s only £2m more than the all time low of £8.5m taken a few weeks back.
Interestingly, unit sales remained relatively flat at 443,447 games sold – only 2,000 units less than the previous week. This suggests the share of sales that full price games accounted for shrank this week.
Week Ending May 26th
Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldierheld onto No.1 for a second consecutive week. There was little in the way of new releases. The PC version of Max Payne 3 added to the success of its console counterparts, while Resistanceon Vita debuted at No.12.
Week Ending June 2nd
There is also little to look forward to this week. The only notable releases are Focus Home Interactive’s Game of Thrones RPG, a new Katy Perry expansion for The Sims in Sweet Treats and the Ratchet & Clank HD Trilogy.
6. LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes Warner Bros................................................................360
7. Lollipop Chainsaw Warner Bros................................................................360
8. FIFA 13 EA........................................................................................360
KIDS ARE KEY to the games and consoles market, with a whopping 84 per cent of children having access to a console and averaging 1.5 hours a day playing time. And this importance is reflected when analysing the share of games and consoles TV advertising received by each commercial TV channel. The chart demonstrates the Top Ten television channels with the highest share of games and consoles advertising year-to-date (January 1st –May 20th, 2012). Of these, five are kids’ specific channels: CITV, Disney XD, Nick, Boomerang and Cartoon Network.
In fact, the total combined share of all the commercial kids channels is currently 26 per cent.
The fact that one in four of all games and consoles TVRs is recorded on a kids channel further emphasises the importance of this market. However, one cannot discount cost when analysing this. Children’s stations are amongst the best value airtime to buy. Therefore – so long as the game’s content is appropriate – adding kids stations to the schedule can result in much more bang for your buck.