UK console sales defy credit crunch
Big year-on-year rises
Console sales across the UK have boomed over the past 12 months, and Nintendo's Wii reigns supreme, according to the latest stats.
Market watcher GfK Chart Track has revealed that, between September 2007 and September 2008, the collective installed base of all the big five consoles - that’s the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, the Wii, the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable - jumped from 8.8m to 17.3m units in the UK.
Sales of Nintendo’s Wii now stand at 3.6m units, up from 1.1m units in September 2007 - a 227 per cent increase. The PS3’s sales have risen from 400,000 units to 1.4m units, during the same period, a Wii-beating increase of 250 per cent. But the Sony console was beaten in pure unit-shipment terms by the Xbox 360’s rise from 1.3m units to 2.3m units, a jump of 76.0 per cent.
Things are looking up for handheld consoles. Sales of Nintendo’s DS almost doubled over the past 12 months, rising from 3.8m to 7.1m units, while Sony’s PSP sales tally went up from 2.2m to 2.9m units - a more modest increase of 31.8 per cent - during the same period.
COMMENTS
sells will soon be down
its just people thinking of the future. with it still being a year or few for the nation get freeview and documentrys and movies on every night on c5. its too expensive to go out down the pub. and need something to do when you stay in
Simple
Games will get you through times of no money but money will not help in times of no games...
something like that anyway ;-)
Aciiiiiiiiiiiiiid face to go with the 'other' version of that phrase.
Incomplete Analysis
Are more units being sold because the cost per unit is less ?
More pertinent analysis is required - are we spending more on these things or are we spending less - i.e. are Nintendo and Sony revenues for this segment in the same period increasing or decreasing?
Consoles / games killing Pubs?
I wonder if anyone has factered in the rise in console and game sales and fall in people going to pubs. Maybe it's not just the smoking ban that's killing the pub trade - maybe it's World of Warcraft!
P.S. Still no dead vulture picture - get it sorted Reg!
