U.K. videogame sales show we’re all casual Nintendo fans now
If you still believe that gaming is a niche hobby for those of us up on our technology, proud to be called geeks, and happy to pull all-nighters playing a particular title, then what rock have you been living under? The videogame landscape is now a violent shade of casual, with new gamers of all ages, sexes and races popping up every day.
Once the domain of the uber-uncool (although we all thought we were the coolest cats at school), videogames are now as mainstream as other forms of popular entertainment such as TV and movies. For proof, one need only take a glance at the worldwide console sales this generation. The Nintendo DS and Wii are sitting pretty way ahead of the PSP, Xbox 360, and PS3, consoles considered more hardcore.
Now comes further proof, if it were needed, of the lurch from the hardcore to the casual, from the niche to the mainstream. The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) recently released the sales charts for all videogames in the U.K. in the first six months of 2009. The results speak for themselves.
Top Ten Videogames In U.K. – First Half Of 2009
1. Wii Fit
2. FIFA 09
3. Call Of Duty: World At War
4. Resident Evil 5
5. Wii Play
6. Mario Kart Wii
7. Professor Layton And The Curious Village
8. Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games
9. Street Fighter IV
10. Guitar Hero: World Tour
Wii Fit being number one says it all really – that gamers are now just as likely to be middle-aged women than they are young men. Wii Play, Mario Kart Wii, Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games are other Wii games to make the top ten. While Professor Layton continuing sales on the Nintendo DS have now made it the bestselling game in the UK of all time.
Even the non-Wii and DS-exclusive games such as FIFA 09 and Guitar Hero: World Tour have a casual appeal although Call Of Duty: World At War and Resident Evil 5 are still flying the flag for the more hardcore gamers. Yet even these two titles are somewhat watered-down versions of older iterations in the series to appeal to a broader demographic of gamers.
Michael Rawlinson, director general of ELSPA, said:
These figures are clear evidence that gaming is now mainstream in the U.K. The demographic has changed, so it’s time we did away with the misperception that videogames are merely the preserve of teenage boys shooting zombies. Innovation in the industry means the social and educational benefits of gaming are now enjoyed by players of both sexes and of all ages.
It isn’t just the U.K. where this is happening either. Gaming has gone mainstream and I doubt it will ever return to its former state. In the same way as reality television is the end result of years of dumbing down TV, and crappy pop is the result of dumbing down music, so we’re heading for a similar future in gaming. Or so it would seem.
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23 Responses to “U.K. videogame sales show we’re all casual Nintendo fans now”
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July 7th, 2009
Wow. Mario and Sonic At The Olympics? Really?
July 7th, 2009
Mario and Sonic at the Olympics lol, those ppl just buy any first party game from Nintendo.
i mean “Professor Layton And The Curious Village” didnt even sold that well here in the US. even though the game supposed to be good.
Wii Play, WFT?
July 7th, 2009
The UK 2009 Accessory/ Pheripheral sales is going to look like this:
1- Wii Weel
2- Numchuck
3- Wii Gun
4- Wii Montion Plus
5- Wii ChargeStation
6- Wii Shotgun
7- Wii Gun w/Motion Plus
8- Wii Grande
9- Wii Claymore
10- Wii Airstrike
My point is the Nintendo Wii has a Pheripheral for every single damn Game.
July 7th, 2009
And the death of gaming as we know it begins. Unfortunately the charts in the rest of the world are probably all identical. Well gaming was nice while it lasted at least…
July 7th, 2009
I think calling it a ‘death’ is going way way too far…..but it’s true that gaming is no longer the (far less profitable) preserve of the self-styled ‘hardcore’.
I think it’s a good thing.
It certainly doesn’t have to be a bad thing, afterall if game devs are making much more money (and those catching this tide ought to be – have you seen the Wii sales numbers compared to the rest?) then it ought to mean devs with enough coin to keep funding more serious games – or it may allow them to fund the kind of games that were previously out of the question.
It’s not like every other type of game is no longer being made.
Look at that chart.
No. 2 FIFA stopped being like an arcade game years ago.
No. 3 Call of Duty is not exactly ‘casual’.
No. 4 Ditto RE.
There’s plenty of room for both.
I’d just add that in todays economic climate it’s probably more accurate to say that without this new wave of ‘casual’ sellers keeping these game Co.s afloat and running then we would be getting far fewer more serious games – from companies that went bust months ago or who were forced to lay-off half their staff in an effort to survive.
You can look at these things far too narrowly if you like but there’s always more than one angle on this kind of thing, you know?
July 7th, 2009
davep – gaming has always been supported by casual gamers.
there are not “150 million” hardcore gamers who bought the ps2. hardcore gamers care little about pricing, but the ps2 didn’t sell aggressively until it hit the $199 price point or less.
proving it was spurned on by the casual market.
i guess you’re new to this “gaming” thing…..
July 7th, 2009
*sigh*
All I care about is if games are still enjoyable. I’m playing Rune Factory on the Wii these days and loving it to death. It doesn’t use motion controls at all, which is simultaneously awesome and annoying. Awesome because I hate motion controls generally, and annoying because… why the heck did they make the game on the Wii in the first place if they’re not going to use motion controls? They could easily have made an HD version of this game on the PS3 and 360 and it would have been even better.
But the point, though, is that the Wii has some games I like. And I’m optimistic that ALL consoles in the future, regardless of how big the casual market is, will have games that I enjoy on them.
-Arvis
July 7th, 2009
Kev shut up and stop making ur usual wild claims
July 7th, 2009
Agree with HH.
Also, as long as we know how to choose our gaming experience won´t be altered. Reality TV and crappy pop haven´t stopped great TV programs and music from being produced. The good stuff will always be there, we just need to look for it.
July 7th, 2009
@Arvis – Fun game, but the constant dungeon crawling needed and wierd story progression bugged me until I stopped playing it.
But yes, very odd that they didn’t use motion controls much. I *think* you can use it for fishing can’t you?.. Maybe I’m thinking of a different game…
July 7th, 2009
“ It certainly doesn’t have to be a bad thing, afterall if game devs are making much more money (and those catching this tide ought to be – have you seen the Wii sales numbers compared to the rest?) then it ought to mean devs with enough coin to keep funding more serious games – or it may allow them to fund the kind of games that were previously out of the question.”
Why would a company make money from one platform just to waste it on another? If “hardcore” games are dying it’s not because of the Wii it’s because they were making ever more expensive games to the same small audience.
July 7th, 2009
So the progress that has been made in gaming over the past decade, should be frozen in time because it’s not commercially digestible for middle aged women and senior citizens?
Seriously.. we are all doomed due to Nintendo shenanigans.
July 7th, 2009
hardcore gaming isn’t dead nor should it be close…ok look how many hardcore classics that are yet to be released…castlevania,crash bandicoot,gran trismo, god of war,twisted metal,final fantasy,etc etc
July 7th, 2009
me_:
“Why would a company make money from one platform just to waste it on another?”
I would have thought that the fact that there are ‘x’ million of each console around is a pretty big incentive.
Obviously the Wii has sold most and as far as this whole ‘casual’ thing goes to a particular segment of the market.
But, do you really think a dev Co. looks at the worldwide sales of something like COD and says there’s no money in the specialised market?
I don’t.
That’s why I said there’s room for both.
I can see that certain platforms are more expensive to dev for than others but that doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no profit in making games for those platforms, just lower profits.
Going by what has been said publicly and recently the one console with a big question mark over it is the PS3 (and even there with 20 million+ potential owners that is a heck of a big market to get a big hit in, even if the dev costs are higher).
With PC & Xbox being reasonably closely related I doubt there’s a big deal there in terms of costs at all.
There’s no sign whatsoever of all games from now on heading only for the casual market.
July 8th, 2009
Happyhockum
CoD has obviously done well. I was thinking more of the games that take a cast of thousands ten years to create and then sell less than “super beach sport weekend” on Wii. I’d be fairly upset if I was a share holder in one of those companies.
July 8th, 2009
Crash Bandicoot is hardcore? Since when?
July 8th, 2009
^^^ LoL
July 8th, 2009
They added pr0n scenes to it.
July 9th, 2009
my bad meant to say it made me hard
July 9th, 2009
it makes me hard too.
July 9th, 2009
wanna cross swords?
July 9th, 2009
“DON’T CROSS THE BEAMS”
July 9th, 2009
I KNEEEWW IT!!!!!!!
i knew Harry must be gay