UK SOFTWARE SALES MONITOR Your weekly guide to the UK games software market
WEEKLY MARKET VALUE:
£19.4m No. 1
Week ending October 6th 20 £19.4m 10 0
In the weeks that followed the release of FIFA 13, the UK games retail market has seen its market value slide. But now it’s back on the up, with sales reaching £19.4m, a week-on-week increase of 21 per cent.
It was another EA title that helped boost the market, the FPS Medal of Honor: Warfighter. Sales of that game helped increase the number of games sold to 691,794 copies, a rise of 16 per cent week-on-week.
£18.96m 658,841 units
£16m 596,691 units
Week Ending October 13th
Week Ending October 20th
Other new titles included Microsoft’s new racer – Forza Horizon– which debuted at No.3, while there was a handful of new 3DS and DS products, including Moshi Monsters: Moshlings Theme Park(No.8) and Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask (No.9)
691,794 units
40 Total UK Software Sales Source: UKIE/Chart–Track and Intent Media 30
LOOK WHO’S TALKING
Week Ending October 6th
Next week’s sales data is potentially a big one. Two blockbusters in the form of Need for Speed: Most Wantedand Assassin’s Creed III, plus other consistent sellers such as Football Manager 2013and WWE ‘13.
“Guess who brought a jet to a gunfight.”
Hollywood’s Robert Downey Jr guest stars alongside others in Activision’s ‘Surprise’ ad for Black Ops II
WHICH CHANNELS CARRY MOST GAMES ADVERTISING?
Generation Media analyses the Top Ten TV channels for video games and consoles advertising
30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0%
28.5% % OF GAMES & CONSOLES CAMPAIGN HWCH TVRS
% OF TOTAL ‘ALL’ MARKETS HWCH TVRS Source: BARB October 2012
THERE ARE now in excess of 180 commercial TV channels to choose from (excluding plus 1s, etc). This week we investigate which of these make the most significant contribution to games and consoles advertising. The chart shows the Top Ten channels ranked by viewing to games and consoles TV advertising measured as housewives with children (HWCH) TVRs. This audience is particularly relevant to the market, considering the dominance of Nintendo and their more ‘family friendly’ approach. The left hand bar represents the contribution that each channel makes to all games and consoles advertising. For comparison, the right hand bar demonstrates
the percentage contribution to the TV advertising market in its entirety. Despite the variety available, the core channels continue to dominate the schedule. ITV1 is number one, amassing 13 per cent of all viewing to games advertising. This is much lower than its dominant 28.5 per cent share of the TV advertising market as a whole.
By way of contrast, the kids market is more important to games and consoles than the wider market. For example, 6.7 per cent of all games and consoles advertising is seen on CITV, whereas its contribution to the wider market is just one per cent. Of the Top Ten channels, five are kids specific.