Sales of interactive games may have taken a slight dip in June but the market is still very buoyant, according to channel research company Inform.
Sales fell 8 per cent over May's figures and are 2 per cent lower than June last year, but the small decrease will not be alarming retailers too much with the growth in the games market growing 17 per cent during the year so far.
The fastest growing games software titles were generally cross-promotions with other entertainment media such as Hollywood films, Inform reported. Activision's range of titles based on the new Spiderman movie for PlayStation 2 and the Xbox sold well, as did Electronic Arts' offering Medal of Honour: Frontline, a game loosely based on Saving Private Ryan available for the PC and PlayStation 2.
Responses from retailers in July have been positive to date, which should translate to further growth in the months ahead. As reported in ARN earlier this month, a new range of PC games such as Neverwinter Nights and Warcraft 3, distributed by Ozisoft and Vivendi Universal Publishing respectively, have been very popular among retailers.
The Inform research also showed that the games race is being won primarily on the range and price of software titles available for the machine, not so much the technical quality of the machine. The older PlayStation 2, with 280 titles under its belt, continues to outperform in terms of sales over the latest Xbox and GameCube machines.