Those Brits love a good game, but lately it seems they don't like buying them so much: the week ending April 23rd was the slowest sales week the UK's seen in four years.
That said, there was still £13.5m ringing through British tills, which some might say is quite a decent amount, though it represents a 23% drop on the previous week. Unit sales were down as well, with some 640,000 games taken to new homes across the land, 21% lower than sales the week before.
What's to blame for this sluggish performance? Predictably there's no single factor, but it's believed the relatively low number of new releases, impending UK election and, of course, the British weather can all take partial credit. That said, Nintendo need not worry as Wii Fit Plus and Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver continue to rake in the money with strong sales performances. And now Monster Hunter Tri is seemingly chomping on the opposition, here's hoping the market will use a First-Aid Med and recover in no time.
[source mcvuk.com]
Comments 25
It's only one week.
With the lowest sales of any week in the past four years. That's a bit disappointing.
I blame the British gamers
"Those Brits?" I thought Nintendo Life was based out of the UK?
I think that us Brits, as a race, should be proud that we don't take gaming so seriously as to miss out on lovely sunshiney days when they come around.
Lol @ tagline.
Good weather go OM NOM NOM and eat all gamez.
Next week you should all buy 3 gamez each and make it an all time high week
Good weather? It was a bank holiday weekend for the weekend just gone, and surprise surprise, it rained!
I want to get WarioWare DIY, but I'm just going to stick with the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta for now. Jetpacks ftw.
@Prosody: Is Monster Hunter Tri to blame for all this? After all, it is chomping the competition
Silly Brits, Games are for Japanese
This is sounding like that Sega Saturn commercial.
Even so, I support Amorous Badger-san's comment.
Too many accents
@zkaplan: All better than yours.
everyone is busy playing Monster Hunter tri.
yeah..I think I'll give that game a miss this week 'cos of the general election..what a crock
i bought my first game aside from VC, for a while, last week..Ikaruga for gamecube
The last 6 months have been some of the best months in gaming Ever. Maybe Nintendo has been slacking on the releases but on the other systems and PC its been a whole different story. To say or think there is nothing to buy is just absurd. Ive got 7 unopened games still and cant seem to catch up at all with the releases still coming with Skate 3 and 3D Dot Heroes right on us. The list is so long of all the great releases in the last 6 months. Maybe a downward economy and a week with no air travel further damaging the economy is to blame?
There are too many games and people are getting tired. The next Call of Duty will see the same fate as E.T. for Atari!
People keep track of these kinds of statistics? That small of a timeframe tells you absolutely nothing.
No games I want have come out for a while, and I'm not paying full price for Splinter Cell. So there you go.
Screw the weather, get back in the house and work on your pale!
I havn't bought a wii retail game since NSMBwii mainly because there hasn't been anything that has looked interesting atleast to me, well not until this weekend with Sin & Punishment 2 out in 3 days! and lets not forget theres still No More Heroes 2 & Galaxy 2 within the next month and half.
Hope they shut game down or sort it out.
They didnt stock Tat vs Cap, Muramasa, snk arcade classics etc.
HMV is my option when it comes to going into a shop to buy games.
The only thing I bought last week was the TvC stick from shopto.net, but I returned it after finding it for almost half the price elsewhere, then proceeded to go out drinking with the money instead and now I have nothing :[
@outrun2sp: I didn't know you were British, whereabouts are you from?
I've bought quite a few games recently.
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