The UK games market seems to be on the verge of a collapse- barring Pokemon, every major game released this year appears to have performed worse in the region than its immediate predecessor, indicating that interest in traditional retail AAA gaming may not be sustainable in the region.
And speaking to MCV UK, Xbox UK boss Harvey Eagle admitted that the UK market has been challenging this year, pointing to a number of high profile games under performing, and noting that stacking all releases into the end of the year release window is probably not helping matters.
“From a console point of view, we are very happy with our performance this year,” Eagle said. “When you look at games, it’s been a mixed year to date if you look at sales success. What you see is that some titles, like FIFA, Battlefield 1, and Forza Horizon 3, have performed really well and others have really struggled to fulfil their potential.
“It’s been a very congested window in recent weeks. People only have so much money in their wallet and it’s really hard for people to go out there and buy everything at once in a short period of time. I do believe that quality games in the end will find their audience over time, and I think they will continue to sell. It has been a challenging year for games for those reasons.”
His analysis is spot on- so hopefully he can talk some sense into Microsoft, and ensure that they don’t just always release their games in the last quarter of the year. Spread your releases out a bit more, let people pick up a major Xbox game in the drier months of the year, too. Maybe that could help with the problem.