Despite its huge success in the UK, it's been reported that Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots did not help much in PlayStation 3 sales. Story in the full article.

Over the past few weeks, we covered the announced Europe Xbox 360 price drop. This move by Microsoft seems to be paying off as their video game platform enjoyed a sales boost. Check out the full article for more details from Chart Track Director Dorian Bloch.

ChartTrack statistics have pegged last week as the worst sales period for Sony's PlayStation Portable handheld video game system in Europe. The dip in sales (32.1% to be exact) was attributed by Sony to growing anticipation for the PSP Slim's launch. This is according to a report from MCV UK.

"There are probably a lot of consumers who are now waiting for Slim & Lite to arrive," said ChartTrack director Dorian Bloch. "The fact that kids are returning to school is also sure to have had a marked effect. There are always bad words to say about a dip like this, but there may well be a sales spike in week 37 after the new console is launched."

The redesign for the company's popular handheld will be launching in the UK on September 14. ChartTrack also noted that retailers were thinning out stock of the original PSP to make sure that there will be enough PSP Slims at launch.

And back in the industry news, UK's very own game market is experiencing a significant year-on-year growth, reports Chart Track, as the statistics rolling in from the hardware and software sales monitors highlight a solid 42% rise for just the first half of 2007 alone.

 

Other discoveries in the industry's wake include a 25% increase in unit sales at the hardware front from 2006's first half, leading to a growth of 87% across the board in total console hardware revenue. Hardware volumes have also been noted to jump up 51% year-on-year.

In the software side, the games are also doing quite nicely, after indications of a 19% increase in unit sales have been observed. Software sales revenue has done fairly well, hitting the 17% mark in rise. Chart Track believes that the trend could go on throughout the year, even though the trend wasn't forecasted by the company in the first place. "We are on track for the biggest year ever in the UK," concluded Chart Track director Dorian Bloch.

Australia, a fellow PAL region, had also reported that data retrieved from GfK noted a good trend for the local industry's 2006 performance, while the NPD group has eyed a possible good year for North America, despite forecasts of decline in the local PC gaming industry.

China and Taiwan had experienced a good fiscal performance last year also, though local forecasts place the Asian industry as the perfect complement to the console industry with the rise of casual, MMO, and PC gaming in the Eastern hemisphere. More updates on the industry as we get them.

In light of the 82% sales drop the Chart Track (Chart-Track) research group reported for the Sony PlayStation 3 in the UK, company boss Dorian Bloch stepped in to dissolve speculations on what these new figures could imply.

"A figure of an 82% drop has leaked out but that alone means nothing," Bolch said during a recent interview by Next Generation. "Given how much pent up demand there was for PS3 and given the sophistication of pre-order systems now, it really doesn’t mean anything."

It will be remembered that the PS3 experienced large-scale pre-orders in Europe, with regions like Benelux reporting roughly 44,000 pre-orders before the PS3's March 23 launch.

Bloch further added that in most console launch scenarios, extra console stocks were not available for the second week of launch. The PS3 console's case was different as Sony apparently had extra stocks available for consumers even after the first week frenzy - it will be remembered that 165,000 PS3 units were sold within two days after the UK launch. In its second week on the UK market, the PS3 received a further 30,000 sales.

"Judging a console based on nine days on sale is just crazy. It doesn’t make any sense," Bloch remarked. Sony has yet to comment on the recent sales reports posted.

Reports from the UK put our beloved DS Lite in a solid, but not sensational sales position, as there have been 35,000 units sold in the opening weekend. This may not be much compared with the original DS, where 87,000 units were sold at launch - but still, for a "merely" redesigned system, it's very good. Especially considering this happened while the whole of Europe finds itself in the tight grip of the World Cup craze, and without heavy promotion from Nintendo.

ChartTrack's Dorian Bloch agreed on this, stating: “You can call it good as they've managed to sell 35,000 even though the football's on. I tend to think it doesn't make much difference to what the year total will be, because those who haven't bought it yet will buy it as soon as their attention has moved on from something else.”

The percentage of white/black Lites sold seems to lie pretty evenly around 50/50, and sales of the old DS haven't been affected either; particularly the pink model, bundled together with Nintendogs, seems to be selling very well. As a side effect, the DS Launch caused a number of DS games to shoot up the ladder - consequently, a total of eight exclusive titles are now residing in the Top 40 All Format Charts.

So as Japan holds the pole position in the DS Lite madness (2.2 million sold since the launch) and the US and UK are following with satisfying numbers, I hope it doesn't convince Nintendo to continue the practice of annual hardware revisions in the future. Because love only goes so far...