July has become the worst month for game sales in United Kingdom’s history.
Game sales only generated £23 million, which is nearly half of what was earned in June. This past month saw only a bit over one million boxed games sold, which is 40.4% lower than June and 33.3% lower than July of last year.
With the announcement of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, game sales were expected to be low as gamers are preparing for the next generation of games and consoles. This was only compounded by the fact that July only saw three new releases – Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros, Pikmin 3 and Dynasty Warriors 8.
Hopefully, retailers will recover this month. On August 23rd several highly anticipated games are set to release. These are Saints Row IV, Splinter Cell, The Bureau: XCom, and Disney Infinity. These sales are expected to reach around £1 billion between now and Christmas.
Here are the top ten games of July, courtesy of the GFK Chart.
1. The Last of Us (Sony)
2. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition (Microsoft)
3. Animal Crossing: New Leaf (Nintendo)
4. FIFA 13 (EA)
5. Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)
6. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros (Nintendo)
7. Tomb Raider (Square Enix)
8. Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft)
9. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Activision)
10. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Legendary (Bethesda)
