UK games magazine sales slump, transition period blamed
ABCs ending June 30th 2005 signalled another drop in the fortunes of UK games magazines, with the lack of big releases and next-gen transition singled out for blame by magazine chiefs.
Sales of UK games magazines declined in the six-month period from January 1st to June 30th 2005 according to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, with magazine chiefs at market-leader Future Publishing blaming the transition period between new console releases for the shortfall.
Future's year-on-year circulation was down to 513,733 copies per month, with both the Official PlayStation 2 Magazine and Official Xbox Magazine taking six-month hits - the former falling from 172,593 copies per month to 133,242, and the latter declining from 88,136 to 85,072.
The third official, Emap's NOM, is the biggest-selling Nintendo title with 37,760 issues going out monthly, but that still represents a drop of over 6,000 copies.
Unofficial single-format console magazines experienced widespread drops, many sinking into the lower 20,000s per month, although Future's PlayStation World and PSM 2 and Highbury's Play publication stood respectably apart from the others.
There was bad news too for PC magazines, as PC Gamer fell to 45,276 from 54,442 - just six months after it logged its first dip below 60,000 in the annual ABCs. Rival publication PC Zone meanwhile, now also published by Future, fell to 32,632. PC Format fared slightly better, climbing to 41,694.
Future also noted a rise in EDGE's fortunes - the respected multi-format selling 31,078 copies per month - and paid tribute to its next-generation console coverage as a key factor. Another multi-format, Games Master, rose slightly year-on-year but was down in the six-month period to 55,388 - despite the dissolution of Computer & Video Games magazine at the turn of the year.
Future's Publishing Director Mia Walter called it all "an unsurprisingly mixed bag". "The overall decline of 6.8 per cent year-on-year comes at a quiet time in the current generation of hardware with no big triple-A releases like Halo 2 or GTA: San Andreas."
Future aims to support the launch of Xbox 360 this year with the introduction of the Official Xbox 360 Magazine in September.