Software sales drop 42 per cent in a week

Driven by BioShock Infinite and Cadbury's Creme Eggs, retail game sales in the UK hit an annual high of more than £20m over Easter – only to see spending drop like a brick in the week that followed. KitGuru casts an eye over the runners and riders in the race for first software sales place.

It's always going to be hard to compete in terms of software sales, when one of the biggest brands in the graphics card market starts to give your product away.

With a promotion to bundle the number one game, BioShock Infinite, alongside cards like Sapphire's multi-award winning Radeon HD 7790 – you can't expect millions of copies to fly off the shelf.

Then again, would you expect a drop in retail sales of 75% in one week?

Following hot on BioShock Infinite's heels (in the wrong direction) is Lara Croft's latest incarnation for the Tomb Raider series – which dropped 34% in a week.

With no major new launches schedules anytime soon, it's going to be a grim spring for stores that rely on gamers spending cash to boost their sprint-time coffers.

Maybe the 2,600 HMV employees that have been told they can keep their jobs – should not start celebrating too soon.

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KitGuru says: What message does it send to game developers, to know that the most popular – most money making Lara Croft was the original – and that years of development, refinement and additional pixel processing power has yet to yield a bigger return?

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