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In a month where Pokmon Go dominated the media, sales of boxed video games plunged to an all-time low.
21.4m was spent on physical video games in the UK during July – the lowest figure ever reported. The previous low happened in July 2013, when the market made just 23m.
In total, 792,000 physical games were sold by the likes of Amazon, GAME, Argos and Tesco.
It wasn’t bad news for the entire market, of course. Nintendo saw its share of software sales spike, thanks to a new Monster Hunter game, Minecraft: Wii U Edition and a rise in sales of Pokmon 3DS titles. During July, the firm was the No.2 publisher in terms of software sold and the revenue generated.
The top publisher was Warner Bros, which continues to ride high on the success of LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The movie tie-in was the best-selling game of the month. Other successful games during July included Uncharted 4 (at No.2) Overwatch (No.3), FIFA 16 (No.4) and Doom (No.5).
Minecraft: Wii U Edition, Carmageddon: Max Damage, Monster Hunter Generations and a Game of the Year edition of Project CARS were the only new games to break the Top 50.
Of course this doesn’t reflect the true health of video games overall, with digital sales taking an increasingly large share of the UK market. GfK is currently working with SuperData to produce a UK chart that will combine physical and digital sales information.
Data courtesy of GfK/UKIE.
