United Kingdom (Ohga Shrugs)

United Kingdom is the name of a country in North-West Europe. Other than the United States and Japan, it is the world's leading market for console and handheld video games.

Market
Detailed information about the United Kingdom's video game market has only become publicly available in recent years. However, this limited sales data paints a clear picture of the console and handheld market. British gamers as a group infrequently buy a million or more copies of a single title within a year, due to the country's fairly limited population. However, as Assassin's Creed 3 selling nearly 900,000 copies in late 2012 alone shows, the market is still sizable compared to the rest of the continent of Europe.

Compared to other countries in the region, the United Kingdom is more likely to support Sega platforms and exclusives. For example, 2011 had two Sonic games sell within the year's Top 10 best-sellers. This is historically due to Sega's strong support for the country, including their official European headquarters being based there. However, in recent years, support has shifted towards Nintendo's consoles.

The British have a clear fondness for certain types of games. The Assassin's Creed series, as already mentioned, is fairly popular, as are other open world games such as the Batman Arkham series and the PC-only Grand Theft Auto series. Association Football games, including EA's FIFA series, also do quite well. Nintendo's Mario games are quite popular, retaining fairly high sales for years at a time. However, other Nintendo series, such as Pokemon, do worse in the United Kingdom than in some other parts of the world.

Economy
The British video game industry employs thousands of individuals.

List of Companies

 * Eidos
 * Rare
 * Rockstar Games