| Le marché du jeu au Royaume-Uni représente un secteur important, plus précisément en ce qui concerne les accessoires et périphériques externes. On a ainsi pu voir des ventes dépassant les 3,5 millions de produits pour une valeur de 130 millions d'euros (plus de 85 millions de £) au premier semestre 2008. Résultats encouragés par certains indicateurs montrant que ces chiffres ne feront que s'accroîtrent par la suite.
Communiqué original ci-dessous.
PC still finding favour with today's serious gamer
The UK gaming market is big business, or more specifically the accessories and input device sector. The first six months of 2008 has witnessed strong sales of over 3.5 million units worth in excess of £85 million. Further encouragement has come in the form of indicators that these figures are only going to grow stronger in the future.
Serious gamers will favour the PC. Research revealed by GfK Retail and Technology shows that the PC gaming market continues to perform well in 2008, with over £3.5 million spent in 2008 on dedicated PC gaming input devices such as mice, keyboards, joysticks and game pads. The range of gaming peripherals available to consumers continues to expand.
Aside from the traditional gaming staples of high-end mice, keyboards and graphics cards, PC gamers can exploit the versatility of their systems and choose to buy products ranging from controllers through to high-end gaming chairs sporting built in force feedback, microphones and surround sound to enhance their experience. Conversely, whilst PC gaming is more open to improving the speed and performance of the PC, consoles
remain somewhat restricted and more difficult to expand from their base configurations.
This is not to say that the console gamer can't engage in a little 'pimping'. When looking at the total gaming devices market, over 95% of total devices sold are destined for use with a console. However, the majority of these devices are simply additional controllers required to experience existing multiplayer features inherent to living room gaming.
Nevertheless, there are still add-ons which are used to help enhance gaming enjoyment, such as gaming chairs. These have seen sales dwindle after a strong Christmas period and as a whole remain a rather niche product due to their rather high average selling price, in the region of £76. Whilst this may not seem to be expensive, the general sentiment of gamers seems to be that they would rather spend their money elsewhere.
Despite this, over £1 million has been spent on these chairs in 2008.
In contrast to consoles, one of the key benefits of PC gaming for most consumers is the ability to expand and improve their gaming system with component upgrades such as RAM, graphics cards and other related products. As games become more graphically complex and processor intensive, gamers are upgrading their systems to ensure that the optimum performance and experience can be achieved. GfK figures reveal significant
increases in the sales of these products over the first 6 months 2008, compared to the same period in 2007. Sales of RAM grew by 34% in terms of volume with graphic card volume growth up 15%, totalling over £20 million for graphic cards.
GfK Account Manager Sean Fellows comments that "Contrary to popular belief since the introduction of online gaming for consoles, PC gaming still remains strong with some long awaited titles hitting the market in the forth coming months. To ensure that gamers get the best experience possible you can be sure that they will be pimping their PCs".
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