21 Aug 2000 |

New Launches Steady Volatile Gaming Market

Recent launches dominated the gaming market in the first half of 2000, with 6 titles reporting for the first time. Nintendo magazines suffered badly at the expense of the more popular Sony Playstation and Sega Dreamcast, according to the latest ABC figures for the six-month period to the end of June.

Nintendo Pro lost almost two thirds of its circulation and 64 Magazine and N64 did not fare much better losing a half and a quarter of their circulation respectively.

Computec’s Playstation World led the pack racking up over 100,000 sales in it’s first audit period with Dennis Publishing’s Official Dreamcast Magazine in second place with sales of 51,805.

Jan – Jun 2000 ABC’s – Gaming Magazines
Title		Jan 99 – Jun 99	Jan 00 – Jun 00	Actual Change	% Ch
64 Magazine	Paragon Publishing	36,456	16,280	-20,176	-55.3
Arcade	Future Publishing	35,822	n/a	n/a	n/a
Computer & Video Games	Emap	68,210	43,509	-24,701	-36.2
DC-UK	Future Publishing	n/a	20,383	n/a	n/a
Dreamcast Magazine	Paragon Publishing	n/a	21,673	n/a	n/a
Dreamcast Monthly	Quay Magazine Publishing	n/a	9,103	n/a	n/a
Gamesmaster	Future Publishing	67,852	50,722	-17,130	-25.2
N64	Future Publishing	82,867	61,687	-21,180	-25.6
Nintendo Official Magazine	Emap	90,162	71,310	-18,852	-20.9
Nintendo Pro	Paragon Publishing	30,215	9,933	-20,282	-67.1
Nintendo World	Future Publishing	n/a	12,438	n/a	n/a
Official Dreamcast Magazine	Dennis Publishing	n/a	51,805	n/a	n/a
Official Playstation Magazine	Future Publishing	385,764	300,459	-85,305	-22.1
PC Gamer	Future Publishing	77,220	84,060	6,840	8.9
PC Gaming World	Ziff Davis	42,109	40,330	-1,779	-4.2
Play	Paragon Publishing	76,528	76,535	7	0.0
Playstation Max	Future Publishing	62,298	50,723	-11,575	-18.6
Playstation Power	Future Publishing	94,231	76,048	-18,183	-19.3
Playstation World	Computec Media UK	n/a	100,374	n/a	n/a
PowerStation	Paragon Publishing	49,277	50,761	1,484	3.0
Total		1,199,011	1,148,133	-50,878	-4.2

Overall the market remained fairly static, down just 4.2% on last year and Future Publishing held their lead over Paragon and Emap though newcomer is Computec Media, whose new title Playstation World sold over 100,000 copies, earned the publishing company 9% of the market share.

Gaming Magazines Market Share By Publishing Company
Publishing Company	Jan – June 2000
Dennis Publishing	51,805	10.47
Emap	114,819	11.27
Future Holdings	656,520	53.63
Paragon Publishing	175,182	15.01
Quay Magazine Publishing	9,103	5.97
Computec Media UK Ltd	100,374	8.74
VNU	40,330	3.66
Total	1,231,110	100.00