The total UK consumer spend last year increased by 10% to £5.7 billion, including everything from mobile games to console hardware sales. At the same time software sales rose 10.3% and broke the £4 billion barrier for the first time – at £4.01 billion. Games console sales were up 6.5% to £702 million, PC games hardware was up 18.4% to £445 million, and even peripherals and accessories were up 19.9% to £355 million. Mobile game sales rose by 8.2% to £1.17 billion, while it was revealed that digital and online now accounts for 50% of all UK software revenues. That’s not as clear cut as it sounds though as it includes full game downloads, DLC, and microtransactions across all formats, including mobile – so until Chart-Track start providing combined physical and digital sales data we’re still not going to have a clear idea how well individual games are doing.
