Recent figures released by UK chart overlords GfK Chart-Track indicate the UK game market is down 13% year-on-year in 2010, and a massive 29% lower than 2008 when the Wii and DS were at their height. Now the games industry is looking towards 3DS to get it back on track and help the industry recover from disappointing sales figures.
Industry figures from retailers, publishers and developers all spoke out in support of the machine, which is the first truly new console to reach the UK since the PlayStation 3 launched in 2007. Andrew Thompson, head of games at Asda, said:
Nothing excites and ignites the games market more than a new hardware launch, and Nintendo 3DS is set to be the hottest product of 2011.
Nintendo UK's managing director David Yarnton is equally enthusiastic about the machine, as you'd expect, though we can't help but feel he got a little carried away:
The 3DS will provide people features and benefits that will not only enhance their gaming experience, but provide them with a portable platform that will be used everyday, everywhere, by everyone.
We look forward to posting news of 3DS topping 6 billion consoles sold.
[source mcvuk.com]
Comments 12
I'll wait for Comic Relief to start building 3DS wells in African villages, then.
Sales figures sounds more like the recession to me...not a lack of stuff to buy. Hopefully, since it seems to be getting a bit better here, it's getting better across the pond too.
Depends how it's priced I guess, what with VAT going up and such...
cant wait to get one
Blame it on the recession. The 3DS probably won't cure it completely.
maybe the figures went down because everyone already had a ds?
I'll be doing my part to improve things in the UK... from the US... by raving about it online which'll hopefully spur more interest. ^^;;;;
Price will be a big factor for the 3DS (worldwide, not just in UK).
I thought the story was going to be about UK developers and jobs in the UK gaming industry picking up.
I doubt the 3DS is going to help UK games industry recover. Rather, the government's cut off of funding and the chokehold giant publishers have on the small developer houses
Here's some examples of everyone's favourite publisher Ubisoft, and how they meddled in the game development of a UK developer house (effectively cutting content down to 3 maps and "sexy" characters), suppressed ideas for features prevalent in modern games (because they were unsure gamers would be able to understand the mechanics of secondary weapon functions, and they conflicted with Ubi's own game Assassin's Creed 2) and and then basically wreck the company after they were done with them, siphoning away most of the profits in the process. (they need to sell something like 2 million units on steam before they can begin to earn any returns.)
And it's not just Ubisoft who treat small developers badly. (paragraph 5).
All the money in the games industry is in publishing, and when these issues are balanced a bit, the UK games industry may recover.
But I guess they are talking about the UK industry as in the consumer buying Japanese 3DSes and US published games (of which there are still UK jobs, but not as many as there could be), so happy days.
Apparently the battery life is between 3 to 5 hours this time round. That's what I heard from NeoGAF anyways.
They have to sell the units for 250, then.
It won't sell well if it's expensive.
It hasn't helped that the Kinect's sofware has been so poor. Anyway, let's hope 3DS turns out good.
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