The UK Winners of 2006

The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) has announced figures for the UK gaming industry in 2006.

And it looks like 2006 has been a great year for games in the UK. 61.5 million games were sold in the UK last year, a growth of seven percent over 2005. That adds up to a national spend of £1.36 billion on games.

Interestingly the year was one of the best on record for PC games, which also experienced a seven percent growth over the previous year.

"We are thrilled to see the industry growing and software sales continuing to rise," said Paul Jackson, Director General of ELSPA. "With the new generation consoles and new handhelds there are some amazing titles out there and consumers are continuing to enjoy them. There are new and exciting games available and more and more family orientated and mentally stimulating titles to grasp and hold the interest of all ages. This is also a testament to the industry and it will continue to gain momentum. Although there are new consoles and handhelds for gamers it's is great to see that the PC market is doing so well.”

The most popular console software was the PS2, followed by Nintendo DS, PSP, Xbox 360, Xbox, Wii and GameCube in that order.

But what of the best selling UK games of 2006?

They were as follows:

So FIFA 07 topped the chart in 2006, not bad considering it wasn't released until the last quarter of the year. A strong showing for Konami too despite the weakness of the Xbox 360 version of Pro Evo Soccer. I'm surprised to see Cars did so well though.