UK games sales

Monday 15 November 2010 - London, United Kingdom – UKIE/GFK Chart-Track announce biggest grossing week of all time for video games software sales.

Week 45, 2010 has become the biggest grossing week of all time for video games software in the UK (£113.8m total UK entertainment software market estimate) – the previous best was £107.6m back in week 52, 2008.

Activision Blizzard’s ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops’ exploded into the All Formats Chart (360/PS3/PC/Wii/DS) and is by far the biggest ever launch of any game, recording a staggering 2m units in the UK over 5 days and generating an estimated £81.9m. This is up 13% in units over previous record breaker ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’ (1.8m) and up 21% in terms of revenue (£67.4m for MW2).

Also new this week is Microsoft’s Kinect. In terms of the 11 Kinect launch titles, eight of them debut in the Top 40. Lead title and the next biggest release after ‘Black Ops’ is Microsoft’s ‘Kinect Sports’ at No4.

Kinect joins the other motion sensing driven systems of Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s Move, which have opened up gaming to a wider audience, removing the barrier of hand controllers, buttons and joysticks. When added to the explosive rise in casual and social gaming, interactive entertainment really is now the entertainment medium of choice.

Michael Rawlinson, Director General of video games trade body UKIE said: “The video games and interactive entertainment industry has already seen a great start to quarter 4 2010 and the success of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Microsoft’s Kinect adds to this. The positive sales figures of titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops, new hardware launches like Kinect, the emergence of casual/mobile games like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope and social networking games such as Farmville show that video games and other forms of interactive entertainment continue to be played by more people than ever – with 1 in 3 people in the UK now being gamers.”

“Given the huge audiences for games on all formats, 2010 has been a year of unprecedented activity and focus. And with more video games than ever before being played, on an ever growing range of games consoles, PCs, mobile phones, mobile devices and internet enabled TVs, the industry has widened beyond all expectations and will continue to expand exponentially in 2011."

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Contacts:

For all press enquiries, please contact the UKIE press office on T: +44 (0)20 7534 0580 or E: press@ukie.info

About UKIE

The Association for United Kingdom Interactive Entertainment or UKIE is a trade body that represents the whole of the UK’s video games and wider interactive entertainment industry. Founded in 1989 (and formerly known as ELSPA), UKIE’s membership includes games publishers, developers and the academic institutions that support the industry.

UKIE works with government to champion a range of issues including age ratings, education and skills, tax incentives and protecting intellectual property rights. It also works with the media to ensure true and accurate representation of the sector by raising awareness of the industry’s positive economic contribution and the societal benefits of gaming to policy makers, regulators and consumers.

One of UKIE’s key roles is to support its members by providing them with key market information, promoting careers and offering the business support services, training and best-practice knowledge to enable them to operate most effectively.

In addition, UKIE works with GfK Chart-Track to compile weekly, monthly and annual retail charts and sales reports for the UK market.