UK boxed product sales down 18% in 2009

The market for new boxed videogame product in the UK declined 18 per cent during 2009, according to the latest Chart-Track data released by ELSPA.

Overall boxed software unit sales were down 12 per cent, with only two formats, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, seeing an increase in units and revenue over 2008.

11.9 million PlayStation 3 games were sold in 2009 (up 14%), generating £342 million in revenue (up 2%), while Xbox 360 games totalled 16.2 million units (up 9%), generating £459 million (up 4%), making it the number one format by revenue.

Nintendo Wii games sold 18.1 million units (down 10%), generating £392 million in 2009 (down 18%), while Nintendo DS unit sales were 14.6 million (down 24%) generating £266 million (down 27%).

Non of the above data includes sales of full-games via any of the direct download services such as XBLA, PSN, WiiWare or Games on Demand, nor additional sales of specific game DLC or other content.

Boxed retail game sales of the PSP format declined to 2.8 million (down 32%) generating £44 million in revenue, although no stats are available for content for the digital-only PSPgo.

According to ELSPA/Chart-Track, boxed PC software unit sales were down to 6.2 million (down 26%) generating £91 million (down 22%) although again this does not include any data from digital sales such as Steam, or microtransactions, subscriptions and other payment methods.

It's also worth noting that software sales in this report do not include any game sold via the second-hand or pre-owned market.

ELSPA noted that "the much hoped for December 2009 sales spike on hardware never materialised," with handheld sales at 2.7 million units (down 27%), generating £314 million (down 14%).

The total home console hardware units sold was 4 million units (down 25%) and generated £746 million (down 28%), with the PS3 the only format to sell more consoles that last year.

Console accessories sold 29.6 million units (down 5%), generating £523 million (down 5%), with PC accessories at 6.2 million units (down 30%), generating £107 million (down 32%).

As detailed last week, overall boxed product sales were £3.311 billion in 2009, compared to 4.034 billion in 2008.

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