HMV, the music-to-movie retailer, has reported a 50 per cent jump in game sales led by video titles, such as Grand Theft Auto and Wii Fit, as consumers turn to home entertainment to beat the credit crunch.

The retailer said like-for-like sales, which strips out gains from new stores opened in the 18 weeks to the end of August, were up 1.3 per cent while total comparable revenues rose by 4.1 per cent.

In contrast, sales at Waterstone's, HMV’s book retailer, fell 4.3 per cent compared with a strong previous year when the last Harry Potter book in the series was published.

The group said that like-for-like sales at Waterstone's, excluding Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, fell by 1.7 per cent and by 2.2 per cent up across the group.

Simon Fox, chief executive of HMV, said: "We're not credit crunch proof but we are trading where we expected to be. This has been a solid start for us, we never predicted that double-digit sales growth would continue, our guidance was low single digit and that's exactly how are trading."

Sales at HMV stores rose as more people appear to be staying at home and saving money by watching DVDs and playing video games.

The British Video Association, which monitors the home entertainment market, said that DVD sales rose by 3.3 per cent in the first half of this year, compared with the same period a year ago.

HMV is hoping to increase sales at Waterstone’s as Sony's new launch partner for its e-book reader, when a large range of books will be available just to the retailer's customers.

The group also said that hmv.com will launch an MP3 digital download and streaming offer later this month.

HMV also announced today that it has appointed Robert Swannell as non-executive chairman, from February next year, to replace Carl Symon, who is retiring from the group today.

Lesley Knox, a non-executive director, has been appointed non-executive chairman for the interim period.

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