UK chart data is now in for the week ending 5th January, but a lack of new releases means that we have a near-identical chart from last week.
The biggest change has actually taken place right at the very top, with FIFA 19 once again hitting number one by jumping just ahead of Red Dead Redemption 2. Nintendo's heavy hitters are still sitting safely in the top ten, with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe securing fourth and seventh places respectively.
As regular readers will likely be aware, UK chart data only takes into account physical sales at present. The good news is that this finally looks set to change, with plans for a physical/digital combined charts soon set to become available thanks to a new partnership between the Entertainment Retailers Association and ISFE/B2Boost. This new chart could start to be distributed as early as this month; we'll make sure to make it very clear when this change takes place.
For now, though, here's this week's top ten all formats chart (physical sales only):
1. (2) FIFA 19
2. (1) Red Dead Redemption 2
3. (3) Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
4. (4) Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
5. (5) Battlefield V
6. (6) Forza Horizon 4
7. (8) Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
8. (9) Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy
9. (7) Spyro Reignited Trilogy
10. (11) Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Did you buy any of these chart-topping games this week? Let us know down below.
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 36
It’ll be interesting to see the charts when digital sales are tracked too.
I wonder if it will be all digital sales though, or just from certain sellers. Will Nintendo provide their figures?
How does it work with the tracking of physical and digital charts?
Are the latter only collectively released by Nintendo itself?
Pretty much what I just said here a few minutes ago.
I wonder how charts are tracked with regards to purchasing from foreign eshops. I buy them from South Africa, Russia, Norway etc depending on who's cheapest, but I wonder if developers are still able to track where the user is based as well as where the game was bought from. Will my sale contribute to the Russian charts because that's where I bought it from, or would it go towards the UK one because that's where my Switch is registered to?
That's an interesting definition of "a firm grip". I would only say that when they were on the top spots.
@Scottwood101 if you buy from the South African eshop it's a South African sale. No discussion.
If all the companies are not providing digital sales then the chart should remain as is as otherwise it will be misleading.
Although I do hope all companies do provide the data as it would be interesting.
I highly doubt Nintendo will provide their digital numbers as in the NPD their don't
Last week there were 13 NS, 13 Xbox1 and 14 PS4 titles making up the top 40 in individual format in the UK. Couldn’t get anymore even. And Ninty are certainly firmly back in the UK retail scene.
There are 13 games in the top 40 for the Switch. That's awesome.
Is there a law in the UK that everyone just has to buy every FIFA game?
Or maybe they just have some kind of subliminal hypnosis that forces all Brits to obsess over football the way in America they force American football on everyone by telling them to like it and acting like something is wrong with us if we don't.
I don't think Fitness Boxing did so well. It doesn't seem to have entered the Switch chart, let alone the all-formats top 40.
Also, of minor interest perhaps, it seems that in the pre- and post-Christmas charts, none of the Labo kits re-entered the Switch chart (as I know some people had pinned the holidays as being Labo's potential saviour).
@Haywired It's a shame that Labo's not reached a wider audience. I have the Variety Kit and I think it's an engineering marvel the way the models come together, so clever. I will need to grab the Vehicle Kit while it's still available...
The reviews on Amazon have been overwhelmingly positive as well.
@In_Ex_Fan They are on the top 10 spot though
Here are the Top 20 best-selling games across most of Europe, retail + digital sales for everyone except Nintendo and Bethesda (retail only):
01 (01) FIFA 19 (ELECTRONIC ARTS)
02 (02) RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 (ROCKSTARS GAMES)
03 (04) CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 4 (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD)
04 (08) BATTLEFIELD V (ELECTRONIC ARTS)
05 (10) GRAND THEFT AUTO V (ROCKSTARS GAMES)
06 (03) SUPER SMASH BROS. ULTIMATE (NINTENDO)
07 (05) MARVEL'S SPIDER-MAN (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
08 (07) ASSASSIN'S CREED ODYSSEY (UBISOFT)
09 (09) MARIO KART 8 DELUXE (NINTENDO)
10 (06) SUPER MARIO PARTY (NINTENDO)
11 (14) GOD OF WAR (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
12 (11) POKEMON: LET'S GO, PIKACHU! (NINTENDO)
13 (15) CRASH BANDICOOT N.SANE TRILOGY (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD)
14 (12) JUST DANCE 2019 (UBISOFT)
15 (28) THE SIMS 4 (ELECTRONIC ARTS)
16 (16) SPYRO REIGNITED TRILOGY (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD)
17 (13) SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY (NINTENDO)
18 (22) NBA 2K19 (2K SPORTS)
19 (19) THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD (NINTENDO)
20 (26) GRAN TURISMO SPORT (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
Basically 2019 starting like 2018 on Switch. Clinging to a Nintendo game as we head to another 3 months of rehash and $60 WiiU port. Everyone else gets 1 big release a month 🙄
And if we already know that digital sales are only 25% of big AAA games in the UK. Why would anyone think Counting them will make much difference... It will be a wash.
@Heavyarms55 I'd assume it's the same for the Madden games here in the States.
But yeah. FIFA is balls.
@michellelynn0976
“There are 13 games in the top 40 for the Switch. That's awesome.”
It really is. It’s a fantastic turnaround.
@Agramonte
It could be pretty interesting actually. Bethesda and Nintendo holding back their digital sales could affect them negatively. Also it’s 25% Digital for FIFA, a game that gets traded in a lot. It doesn’t necessarily extrapolate to other games.
@westman98 why the Europiums keep buying this terrible “Battle field 5” game
I like bf franchise, but this game doesn’t deserve to exist!
@Tantani
BFV will always move some copies due to the brand name alone.
With that being said, BFV is selling far less than previous Battlefield entries.
@westman98 yes, I know
But week after week it’s in the top 10
@Tantani
Like I said, even an underperforming Battlefield game will move some copies due to brand name alone.
BFV was not absolutely trashed by everyone like how Fallout 76 was. WOM is somewhat decent, and there were several price promotions to help push copies out the door as well.
I am surprised Smash is the top individual platform game, that’s pretty impressive
Nintendo, or any other publisher, would be mad not to release their digital sales for this combined list. Especially when the UK market is 80% digital. Imagine only 20% of your games being counted while everyone else has 100%. You'd never make the top 10 again.
@electrolite77 It is clarified in the subhead of the source article "However, 75% of AAA game sales are physical"
"...According to ERA... FIFA 19 with 2.5 million units sold - 1.89 million of those sales came physically.... when it comes to AAA releases, digital sales only account for around 25 per cent of the games sold"
They just used Fifa as a Data example in a bigger trend.
Remember, Nobody has digital sale numbers now. So whatever digital trend % you want to apply - in theory would be across the UK market. We have actual physical sales in the UK for 2018
Here is the UKIE/GfK Top 5 best-selling games of 2018:
1 FIFA 19 1,889,401
2 Red Dead Redemption 2 1,757,212
3 Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 1,172,855
4 Spider-Man 676,621
5 Mario Kart 8: Deluxe 458,675
If that is only 20% RD2/COD sales - it would be insane. RED2 would have moved 8.7 million copies just in the UK (or 2.9 million a month). The split can not be that wide.
Physical sales revenue were only down 2.8% Y/Y so the top line £50 games could not have bottomed out at retail.
@Incarta
That 80% digital statistic wasn't just console games though (which this chart is). That included mobile, PC, all sorts of DLC/microtransaction stuff, which obviously skews the digital percentage way higher than it would be with just console gaming. It was a somewhat misleading headline.
@Agramonte
While digital sales are not the majority of total sales like what that clickbait "80% digital" article suggested, it isn't insignificant. 25% of sales being digital for FIFA and 30-40% of sales being digital for other games is far from negligible.
Surprised Mario Kart still doing so well.
@westman98 Yes, And you will see that on a list based on hard numbers. The UK weekly list is just based on a 1 to 20 ranking.
The digital sale will not change that ranking all that much. It will be a wash.
Even giving MK8 the max +40% of hidden digital retail sales it still stays at #5 and given FIFA/Red2 a +25% split - they still stays at #1 and #2
Including digital is a good start. But should also transition to Hard numbers.
@Agramonte
I don't think anyone suggested that adding in digital numbers would literally show a paradigm shift in the market. FIFA/Red Dead/COD will still be the top-selling games.
Makes sense. MK8 is a great game so it should be an Evergreen seller. And Smash was one of the most hyped games of the holiday season!
@electrolite77 I know. Nintendo is starting to do pretty good actually in Europe now.
@Agramonte
In theory the increase would be across the board but it isn’t clear from the data provided. This was discussed elsewhere and Gi.biz may have extrapolated FIFAs digital sales when in fact it usually has a lower digital proportion than other AAA games because buyers trade it in next year. It may be you see more of a spike in e.g. RDR2s sales as 33% of that games sales were digital. That would be enough to make it Number 1. You’ll also see Bethesda and Nintendo games hit hard as they aren’t releasing digital figures.
It won’t be an 80% spike. When the article referred to retail games sales as only 20% of the market that other 80% was made up of everything-mobile games, DLC, micro transactions etc. The U.K. market is healthy and since Nintendo’s resurgence, has a really nice even split between the three systems but it isn’t shifting 2.9 million copies a month of anything.
“Physical sales revenue were only down 2.8% Y/Y so the top line £50 games could not have bottomed out at retail.”
Thy could. The discounting of the big games has been furious. SOTTR and Fallout 76 collapsed in price, BFV was being discounted even before launch and even Spiderman, the RDR2 Deluxe edition and Ac:Odyssey had their retail prices cut before Christmas.
Smash Bros Ultimate weekly sales:
> Week 1: ~135,000
> Week 2: ~65,000
> Week 3: ~49,000
> Week 4: ~35,000
> Week 5: ~15,000
> Total: ~299,000
Tap here to load 36 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...