MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
This Eastern European games market is driven by the largest territory, Poland, which has shown good growth in previous years.
2010 saw a distinct market shift from PC to consoles. The PC market is not declining – just losing share. It has around a 70/30 share of unit sales.
But from a value point of view, due to higher priced titles, console software is now around 60/40 (still, just in PC’s favour) and moving closer every year to becoming equal.
The PS3 is asserting itself as the most dynamic format whilst Xbox 360 is also growing. Key PS3 titles are selling well and some have surpassed 30,000 units sales (in Poland alone). Sales of multiformat titles are between three to five times higher on PS3 than on Xbox 360, due largely to piracy on Microsoft’s console.
PSP is still alive and kicking but PS2 is now sadly dead whilst Nintendo formats still have limited impact in the market.
The market is still being driven by big brands, such as FIFA and Call of Duty are selling more than ever. Even when advertised, new IP is not guaranteed success. As such, retailers are very cautious about taking the kind of quantities seen in previous years. Also big brand kids movie titles often under-perform even after good box office success.
To read MCV’s full territory report on the region, click here.
Chris Stanton-Jones is the head of emerging market specialists Catapult Business Solutions.
www.catapultbusiness.co.uk
