Halo gives High Street reason to cheer

The blockbuster arrival of the latest Halo put the UK games market back on track.

The 360 exclusive helped retailers make over 28m in sales. It was the best week for games retail all year, and a far cry from the week prior, when the UK market value plummeted to its lowest level since May 2006.

According to MCV calculations based on GfK Chart-Track data, retailers have made 761.5 million on software so far this year, a drop of 16 per cent compared to the same period in 2009. But at last there is reason to cheer, with a new Chart-Track report predicting that UK retail is on course to generate another 700m in game sales over the next three months.

Certainly, the big releases now come thick and fast. FIFA 11 kicks off the busy Q4 season next week, with a major multiplatform blockbuster due out every week until December – including PES, Medal of Honor, Fallout: New Vegas, Wii Party, Just Dance 2, The Sims 3, Gran Turismo 5, Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty: Black Ops.

However, despite the uplift, there’s much distance to cover if the UK market hopes to match 2009’s sales.

Having generated 761.5m in 2010 so far, UK retail will have to rake in just under 1bn if it hopes to match 2009’s performance of 1.621bn. Alas, Gfk Chart-Track says the UK games software market is currently set to make 1.475 billion this year, a decline of nine per cent.