2016 might have been unapologetically awful on a lot of levels, but the UK games industry grew to a new record high of £4.33bn, according to a market valuation by the UK’s games trade body Ukie. That’s a rise of 1.2% compared to 2015, with various sectors showing growth.
At the heart of this, software sales exceeded £3bn for the first time, with an increase of 11.1% in digital game sales and a 16.9% rise in mobile games revenue, no doubt spurred on by Pokémon Go as it neared the £1bn mark. This does, however, mask much of the decline in boxed game revenue of 15.2%, which brought in £766m to digital’s £1.22bn.
Beyond just games, there were a number of hardware releases, with VR headsets valued at £61m, but also helping to spur on sales of new top end GPUs from Nvidia and AMD, increasing 64% to £258m. With the price of hardware dropping, console sales also brought in less money, down to £507m.
So yes, there were some downs, but games in the UK on the whole looked pretty rosy last year. The full breakdown from Ukie is as follows:
| SEGMENT | DATA SOURCE | 2015 (£m) | 2016 (£m) | % GROWTH |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Digital & online | SuperData | 1,101.4 | 1,223.5 | +11.1% |
| Boxed Software | GfK Entertainment | 903.9 | 766.7 | -15.2% |
| Mobile revenues | SuperData | 851.1 | 995.1 | +16.9% |
| Pre-owned | Kantar Worldpanel | 123.0 | 119.0 | -3.3% |
| SOFTWARE TOTAL | 2,979.4 | 3,104.3 | +4.2% | |
| Console hardware | GfK Entertainment | 692.6 | 507.5 | -26.7% |
| PC game hardware | GfK Entertainment | 157.0 | 258.0 | +64.3% |
| Perhiperals & accessories | GfK Entertainment | 359.8 | 300.2 | -16.6% |
| VR hardware | SuperData | – | 61.3 | – |
| HARDWARE TOTAL | 1,209.4 | 1,126.9 | -6.8% | |
| Toys & merchandise | NPD | 62.3 | 66.8 | +7.2% |
| Books & magazines | Nielsen | ABC | Ukie | 16.3 | 18.4 | +13.2% |
| Movies & soundtracks | Official Charts Company | 6.9 | 7.8 | +14.4% |
| Events & venues | Ukie | 6.2 | 7.5 | +20.6 |
| OTHERS TOTAL | 91.7 | 100.6 | +9.7% | |
| TOTAL | 4,280.4 | 4,331.8 | +1.2% |
camdaz
Wow that’s quite a large amount, especially as there wasn’t any brand new consoles released during that time. Even with the PS Pro the console hardware is down just over a quarter.
Stefan L
This is revenue, so having regular console discounts and the release of Xbox One S and slimmer PlayStation 4 at lower price points will affect the amount of money coming in from that particular corner.
camdaz
Some interesting news of worldwide gaming market reported by venturebeat.com
Sony dominated the game console hardware, software, and service market in 2016, capturing a total of 57 percent share, or $19.7 billion of spending by gamers, according to market researcher IHS Markit.
Sony is expected to continue this run in 2017 with overall sales expected to rise above $20 billion thanks to growth of digital console games.
But IHS noted that the overall console game market shrank in 2016, and Nintendo is newly competitive this year with the launch of the Switch game console on March 3. Microsoft is also expected to rebound from a decline in 2016 with more digital sales and the launch of Project Scorpio (its upcoming PlayStation 4 Pro competitor) by the end of 2017.
The overall console market hit $35 billion in revenues in 2016, counting hardware, software, and services. Sony’s share was almost double that of Microsoft and its Xbox One. The PS4 ended 2016 with an installed base of 53 million consoles sold to date, compared to 27.6 million for the Xbox One.