Report: Gaming to reign supreme in the UK

by David Hinkle { Nov 5th 2008 at 4:22PM }

When it comes to the UK, we really only know one person. So we've just assumed for the longest time that gaming was the bee's knees in the country. Turns out that folks living there have enjoyed other forms of entertainment for a long time. They're all starting to come around now, thankfully.

According to a report conducted by Verdict Research, gaming is poised to be the top form of entertainment there for the first time ever this year. The projections for sales figures show the games industry earning 4.64 billion pounds, compared to the 4.46 billion pounds the music and video industry is expected to generate. We wonder how much of that is thanks to the Wii?

So, UK readers, does this surprise you? Is gaming a big thing with your inner circle, or has gaming only recently become the activity of choice? How much of your own cash do you think is in that 4.64 billion pound figure?

Tags: britain, business, england, europe, report, sales, sales-figures, salesfigures, uk, verdict-research

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

FantomRedux @ Nov 6th 2008 5:39AM

about £100 for the DS I bought not to long ago. and about £20 every two months for a wow card

phil mitchell @ Nov 6th 2008 1:01PM

About £300 this year. All of that on Wii and DS games except for the £6 i spent last week on the additional features to the excellent online game, Fantastic Contraption.

Rory @ Nov 6th 2008 10:33AM

I live in the UK and before the wii it was really only teenagers in my area who played video games.Now even myparents are playingand generally games consoles over here are really expensive, but the wii is cheap.

Phil Mitchell @ Nov 6th 2008 1:08PM

As for gaming increasing, I think a lot more people that I know have bought wii's but it is only those who traditionally played computer games (young males) who have bought additional software. The rest (males/females over about 25) seem to have bought them solely for wii sport or wii fit, played for a month and not touched them since.

That may not be accurate for the entire population but is true for the majority of my friends, family and colleagues.

Steven Jones @ Nov 7th 2008 8:26AM

Being a 30 something living in the real UK (AKA not in London ;) ) I would say gaming is pretty wide spread. Almost all of my colleges in the office own at least one current gaming platform, and several more than one. I should point out my colleges are all in the same age bracket as myself. I guess being the first generation to have grown up with gaming we're carrying the wave with us, refusing to live by the old standards of 'Games are for kids' and showing it to be a true entertainment form!