UK industry suffers in March

Given the issues with Game Group, it should come as no surprise that business in the UK games industry was down in March.

As MCV reports, 2.6 million games were sold during last month. That’s down 34 percent year-over-year, from 4.1 million in March 2011. £67.7 million, down by 33.5% for March 2011. Q1 sales were down 30% in comparison to Q1 2011.
Just looking at recent UK charts listings shows that EA had an iron grip on March sales with big releases like Mass Effect 3 (the month’s biggest selling title), SSX and FIFA Street.
Game Group, the country’s leading specialist high-street retailer went into administration towards the end of the month. The company had to close a range of stores, which undoubtedly had its hand in these figures. Now that the retailer has been bought up things will hopefully be back on track in April.