UK games market worth £4bn in 2008

The official figures are in and –

as we predicted

just before Christmas – 2008 was a record year for video games sales in the UK.

In total, the games market was at an all time high last year according to ELSPA/GFK Chart-Track figures with the total software and market worth 4.034bn – up greatly from 3.4bn in 2007.

82.8m units of software were sold in the UK

Proving our calculations correct, software alone was worth 1.905bn, up over 20 per cent over 2007’s 1.552bn.

Total hardware sales revenue was 1.422bn, up 14 per cent on 1.252bn in 2007.

Peripherals also saw a boom, with sales up to 549m – up 82 per cent over 2007’s 301m.

ELSPA attributed the market growth to the wider demographic being served by the video games industry plus growth in formats held by Nintendo plus Sony and Microsoft