A Golden Age? - UK gamers alone spend £1.5bn on titles

[Tuffty]

UK gamers have spent a record-breaking £1.52bn on titles in 2007, up 25% on last year and with two weeks of sales yet to be counted.

Sales of video games in the UK are now at an all-time high, with more than 78 million titles sold, buoyed by new hardware and the success of the Wii.

Last week more than £87.9m worth of games were sold, setting a new record.

Hugely impressive. And I can't remember a year where such high quality titles were released. Final Fantasy XII, Okami, God Of War 2, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Call Of Duty 4, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, Mass Effect, The Orange Box, Crysis, Uncharted : Drake's Fortune, Guitar Hero III, Rock Band. I mean really, take your pick. Would be interesting to see if the American and Japanese markets have also seen an increase, or whether it's just the UK market that's growing.

What do you guys think? Do you think we're living in a gaming golden age? Think 2008 can even top 2007, and if so, what are the title's to look out for?

[Asmodai]

Fallout 3 looks promising. There's the usual spat of FPS games - some of which may be quite good. There's also the sleeper hits which fly under the radar prior to release.

It was interesting that games on consoles account for 79% of sales. This means either PC gaming isn't well off at all relatively, or that gamers have migrated to Steam and other direct download options that aren't reflected in the sales figures.