UK game sales were better than ever in 2008. Loads of lovely stats and figures here!

ELSPA (the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association) today revealed annual sales figures from Chart-Track that show videogame sales reaching an all-time high in 2008.

Total sales of all videogame software and hardware amounted to £4.034 billion. There was a huge increase in games sales in 2008, with growth of 23 percent on figures for 2007. The market has now more than doubled over the last five years. The increasing popularity of videogames took total software sales to £1.905 billion, compared to £1.552 billion in 2007. Hardware sales have been equally spectacular.

Nintendo platforms led the way, with software sales of nearly 40 million units in the UK. Nintendo Wii games were up 153 per cent, with 20.1 million units sold last year compared to 7.9 million units in 2007. Revenue from Nintendo Wii software sales also enjoyed a dramatic increase of 112 per cent to £481 million, compared to £227 million in 2007.

The Nintendo DS came through as the star hand-held performer, notching up a record-breaking 19.1 million software sales in the country, compared to 14.9 million in 2007. The leap represents an increase of 28 per cent year on year. Revenue from Nintendo DS videogames sales increased by 17 per cent – from £314 million in 2007 to £366 in 2008.

Sony’s PlayStation 3 console notched up its first full year of UK videogame sales in 2008. Sales rose 145 per cent, with 10.4 million units sold – more than double the 4.2 million games sold in 2007. The PlayStation 3 saw a 115 per cent rise in revenue and software sales reached £334 million in 2008 compared to £156 million in 2007.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 also continued to see growth in sales with a rise of 51 per cent of videogames sold – a total 14.9 million units sold in the UK last year, compared to 9.8 million in 2007. Revenue was also up by 38 per cent, with £443 million in 2008 compared to £320 million in 2007.

The total revenue for the UK’s console hardware sales in 2008 was £1.422 billion – an increase of 14 per cent compared to £1.252 billion in 2007. The total value of console gaming peripherals increased by 82 per cent, with total sales reaching £549 million compared to £301 million in 2007.

Michael Rawlinson, Managing Director of ELSPA, said: “It is also encouraging to see that the popularity of videogames continues to grow year on year. More than ever, videogaming is increasingly bringing families together with the introduction of so many outstanding family-based console titles. These have really opened up the market to those who may never have even considered playing a videogame before.”

This 23 percent growth is in contrast to Japanese game sales which experienced a 15 percent decline last year. The downturn was blamed on a lack of new hardware, something which didn’t appear to be an issue for us Brits.

For comparison to other forms of media, you may be interested to learn that DVD sale crept up just 1.9 percent in that same period. whilst album sales were down 3.2 percent. Music single sales were up 33 percent thanks to digital services like iTunes, and Blu-Ray sales jumped a massive 358 percent.

All told, a whopping 82.8 million games were bought by eager UK gamers in 2008. How many of those did you buy last year?