Consumers spend on booze and holidays, not video games and books

Consumers are spending money – just not on video games.

According to the Leisure Industries Research Centre in Sheffield, people spent 227.5bn on leisure activities in 2012. A rise of 3.7 per cent over 2011.

The biggest risers were for holidays and tourism, which rose 4.1 per cent year-on-year. Meanwhile, more money was spent on sport and alcohol, possibly driven by a summer of events, that included the Olympics, Euro 2012 and the Queen’s Jubilee.

But the one area that did suffer was home entertainment, particularly video, games and recorded music. This sector saw the steepest declines across the entire leisure markets, a drop of 12 per cent.

It’s not a flattering comparison, and suggests that the entertainment markets can no longer use the faltering economy as an excuse for the drop in sales.

Hardware, which includes PCs and consoles, did see a slight increase in sales. But it remains to be seen if this will result in a rise in software sales in the coming months.