UK Game Mag Numbers Show Further Declines

According to the latest ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations) six month sales figures, UK video game magazines have continued to show a general decline, - with even Future's generally stalwart Edge, generally one of the few to show a circulation increase, dropping by just over 5,000 readers. After falling by some 25,000 readers in the last poll, Future's Official PlayStation 2 Magazine, still the most popular title during the new six month period, plummeted even further - from 76,351 to 44,182. Many other notable Future Publishing magazines showed similar falls, including PlayStation World down from 26,003 to 17,132, PSM3 down from 26,584 to 24,121, and GamesMaster down from 53,904 to 47,719. (The UK game magazine market is dominated by Future, with its only significant rival being the relative newcomer, Imagine Publishing.) Future's PC specific magazines also saw declines, with PC Gamer down from 43,620 to 41,599 and PC Zone down from 27,002 to 24,385. Multi-format magazine Edge, which recently has shown trend-defying increases, this time fell from 35,145 to 30,021 copies sold per month. Some magazines did manage to buck the trend this round, though, particularly those linked to the Xbox 360 or Nintendo systems, with Future's Official Xbox 360 Magazine up from 56,057 to 65,673, Xbox World 360 up from 23,202 to 30,296, and Official Nintendo Magazine up from 42,960 to 47,925. Imagine Publishing's X360 was also up incrementally from 28,006 to 30,179, and 360 inched up from 11,369 to 12,017. ABC did not provide new audits on a number of Imagine's publications, notably its Play (last at 29,086) and Games TM (last at 20,370) magazines, because the publisher elected to put the magazines on a yearly ABC schedule. Finally, Uncooked Media's own 360 Gamer magazine saw circulations rise from 10,632 to 12,586.