Games market down as sector fragments

Retail will not match 2009’s sales figures, despite a Q4 sales surge.

Record-breaking sales for FIFA 11 and Black Ops have helped retail beat last year’s Q4 numbers.

According to MCV calculations based on Chart-Track data, retail needs to sell more than 20m units and make 313m in three weeks to match 2009’s full-year figure.

Codemasters CEO Rod Cousens said that the dip is due to market changes: How much of it has been offset by downloads? What percentage was pre-owned? What was the impact from supermarkets? All of these are factors so I’m not sure it was so bad.”