Most UK Game Retailers Expecting Increased Sales For Holidays

A new survey polling UK video game retailers shows that 58 percent of respondents expect to see increased year-over-year sales for the holiday, despite the current economic climate. Conducted by British trade paper MCV, the MCV Retail Survey 2008 featured responses from a variety of retailers, including GAME, Blockbuster, Gamestation, HMV, and a range of independent stores. According to the nationwide study, 86 percent of the video games retailers surveyed also say that they feel confident about their business' prospects for the coming new year. UK games retailers voted Nintendo as their favorite company of 2008, beating out runner-ups Microsoft and GAME. Store managers pointed out software such as Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii as notable sales drivers. Additionally, 26 percent of those polled named Ubisoft as "Best Games Publisher for Quality and Attitude to Retail," edging out Electronic Arts, which took 25 percent of the vote. 56 percent of the games retailers believe that Activision Blizzard’s Call Of Duty: World At War will top GFK-ChartTrack's All Formats Christmas chart this year. "This is great news for anyone who works in the UK games industry," says MCV editor-in-chief Michael French. "MCV’s Retail Survey provides a vital snapshot of what’s on the minds of store managers up and down the country – and it’s wonderful to know that they’re succeeding in amongst all of the doom and gloom currently facing the High Street." He continues, "It appears they have good reason to be optimistic about next year, despite the likely backdrop of even greater economic trouble ahead. If games retailers continue to be a beacon of success as other trades struggle, it will offer yet more evidence of the UK games industry’s growing importance to the British economy."