a little slice of geek

UK Retail Games Sales Surpassed Music Sales

The ERA (Entertainment Retailers Association) have published the latest figures for the UK’s public buying habits with regard to Music, DVD and Games. What has been forcasted for years has now happened, sales of video games have surpassed that of music. Take a peeka t the figures below:

2005:
Video/DVD: £2,196m
Music: £1,839m
Games: £1,345m

Total: £5,380m

2006:
Video/DVD: £2,122m
Music: £1,651m
Games: £1,361m

Total: £5,134m

2007:
Video/DVD: £2,164m
Games: £1,719m
Music: £1,417m

Total: £5,300m

What can we conclude from this? Well despite public buying being on the rise again as a whole (recovering from 2006’s slump), two things are quite clear, buying music from retail outlets is on the fall, possibly due to people being lazy, possibly also due to Record Labels alienating themselves through bad press (10 points for obvious links to people like the RIAA and the MPAA) and that games sales are on a dramatic rise. An increase of £374m in just three years isn’t too shabby. This is quite possibly due to the release and flourishing of next gen consoles such as the Xbox360, Wii and PS3.

Well, whatever the reason behind it, yay for gaming, down with music industry, no doubt these published figures will spark more moaning from the record industry about how they aren’t making any money… Make decent music at a decent price then perhaps people would feel inclined to buy it again, muppets…