With the Japanese market suffering a significant decline in value as the UK enjoying record sales in 2008, MCV have conducted a market analysis and believe the UK games market will by the end of the year grow to become the second most valuable in the world behind the U.S.

Despite economic turmoil the games industry enjoyed a healthy boom, one which some believe is due to people resorting to cheaper forms of entertainment during the downturn. Both the U.S. and the UK's Market value increased with the UK booming by 18.5% to be worth £4.03 billion (4.3bn euros) in 2008, compared to its £3.4 billion evaluation in 2007.

The US enjoyed an even larger increase in value growing by 19% to be worth £14.89 billion in 2008, compared to £12.51 billion in 2007. Japan however, saw a 15% decrease, going from a value of 5.37 billion in 2007 to £4.55 billion.

UK 2008 unit sales by format

XBOX360 - 1.4 million
PS3 - 1 million
Wii - 2.9 million

USA 2008 unit sales by format

XBOX360 - 4.8 million
PS3 - 3.7 million
Wii - 10.2 million

Japan 2008 unit sales by format

XBOX30 – 318k
PS3 – 991k
Wii – 2.9 million

However, MCV do point out that it is important to take into account that "in Japan both the DS and PSP outsold their home console cousins by considerable margins – in this case Nintendo’s machine sold 4m units and the PSP 3.5m." To read MCV’s Global Market Analysis in full, click here.

[photo from The Guardian]