Yesterday, physical games sales data for the UK revealed the best-selling titles of 2019. To nobody's surprise, FIFA 20 took out the number one spot, with a total of 1.5 million sales. Nintendo also had a reasonably good year in this part of the world, with both Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Pokémon Sword (not including Pokémon Shield sales) making the cut.
Despite a strong year for Nintendo titles, no first-party games from the Japanese company have performed well-enough sales-wise to earn a spot in the UK's top 10 best-selling physical games of the past decade. As you might have already noticed at this point, the game that did take out first was Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V, followed by Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops and in third place was Minecraft, which has at least been released on multiple Nintendo platforms.
The rest of the list is comprised of two other COD games and EA's FIFA series takes up five spots on the chart. That's FIFA 14 in fifth, FIFA 13 in sixth, FIFA 15 in seventh, FIFA 11 in ninth and FIFA 12 in tenth place. Unfortunately, sales figures were not provided by the GfK.
1. | Grand Theft Auto V |
2. | Call of Duty: Black Ops |
3. | Minecraft |
4. | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 |
5. | Fifa 14 |
6. | Fifa 13 |
7. | Fifa 15 |
8. | Call of Duty: Black Ops II |
9. | Fifa 11 |
10. | Fifa 12 |
As already noted here, FIFA 20 was the best-selling video game in 2019 within the UK. Clearly there are no signs of its popularity slowing down anytime soon, even after all the uproar last year about microtransactions and loot boxes.
Are you at all surprised by this list? Did you expect any Nintendo exclusives to make the cut? Share your thoughts below.
[source bbc.com]
Comments 84
Would love to see GTA V on switch
This is absolutely embarrassing
The UK have very simple tastes
Fifa 11 to 15 really? UK gamers bought the same game five times.
I can proudly say I have never, ever even touched a FIFA game in my life and I don't intend to start now.
Monomania at its best
@Orangezap89 Don't lump us all in together. We have a lot of casual players who buy a game console to play only one game every year; Fifa or CoD. That's why our chart looks like that.
LOL! Last time I played FIFA was in 1999, on the N64.
Oh UK, what are you guys doing
Fifa puzzles me. Bought them all from '12 to '18 but cant say the incremental changes they make are actually improvements. Only one I play now is Fifa 15 which has the best balance of arcade/simulation for me. 18 seemed to have players plodding along at a snail's pace (in mud) and long/finesse shots seemed to be impossible.
I will never understand how fifa and COD sell so much each year
So... two franchises account for eight of the games in the top ten. That is absolutely staggering. No wonder EA and Activision keep pumping out a FIFA and COD every single year. I wonder when this pattern will start to break down? Although it is noticeable that FIFA 15 is the most recent FIFA entry in the list.
Most notable info from this is they're all last gen games and most of which are exclusive to last gen:
It'll be interesting to see how much GTAV on Game Pass affects the weekly charts from next week onwards if at all.
...I think it's safe to say that the UK likes
soccerfootball.This is the death of game design.
Oh what a depressing list
So what I'm learning is despite many people on this site mocking EA and Activision many more people buy their games.
@Matthew010
Me neither
@Tyranexx You were right the first time. It's soccer. Football is Aussie rules or Rugby league/union.
@Baker1000 No. Embarrassing was "United Passions".
This FIFA. Maybe they used the "please let us host the world cup" bribes to buy up copies of their own game.
That just summarises us gamers in the UK. I personally haven’t played FIFA since the Megadrive when it was in the Iso View Point.
But that never played as well as Kick Off 2, or Sensible Soccer (IMO). ISS played so much better than FIFA on the N64.
EAs answer to beating the competition was to buy exclusivity to FIFA rather than make a better Football Game
Its not surprising that list. We love football here in the UK.
If you follow football and you love video games it’s a no brainer
@NintendoLife You guys made a mistake there and put the same game on the list five times
@fluggy Unfortunately a huge part of buying a new FIFA is the roster of players for a lot of people. They HAVE to have the current, relevant roster, and don't care if the gameplay is barely or at all improved.
Of course it's one of those ''to each their own'' things, though. I haven't played a FIFA game in years myself but I have a few co-workers who play only that and/or CoD, too. (And no I'm not from the UK.)
@matdub Ah, I see. It's not a sport I follow. I just like poking fun at English differences sometimes.
@Ooyah The reason that FIFA 15 is the most recent entry could be because more and more people are now buying it digitally.
Think I remember playing FIFA ‘95 on MegaDrive back in the day, but I’ve never actually purchased a FIFA game, so don’t blame me lol. The only GTA game I’ve ever bought is Chinatown Wars on DS!
People can talk power, framerates, resolution, raytracing and teraflops until the cows come home. The vast majority of people who buy consoles don’t give a toss and only care about their sports/CoD or GTA.
My nephew took a little walk with me there on my way home from work, we were chatting about games & what systems I had and used to play back in the day... he has a PS4, his brother a Switch, myself & my son both have Switch. He was saying that on his Friends list, or whatever it is on PlayStation, there’s usually about 3 or 4 playing Fortnite... & every other active player is on FIFA. All the guys I worked with were the same, their PlayStations were basically FIFA machines.
From working in the retail sector in the UK I am not even slightly surprised by this list
Put a football(soccer) minigame in Gta5, and no other game has a chance.
Quite sad that only 2 games are neither COD nor Fifa.
@MrJed GTA 5 is a very large game so I don’t see that happening (unless they remove the online portion and make it single-player only like Doom did).
GTA V still being at the top of sales charts huh, no wonder why Rockstar barely puts an effort nowadays. Their only new game this gen was RDR2 and that technically isn't so "new" being just a sequel.
And it's even more baffling they haven't released anything other than L.A. Noire on Switch, porting San Andreas would be easy money for them and it's not like it hasn't been remastered already, same with the likes of Manhunt, Bully, other GTA's that have been on both PS4 and Xbox for years
@Majora101 I love it when gamers trash other gamers for their tastes. It's like listening to martin scorsese talk about how marvel movies arent real films. I get it. You don't like FIFA and you don't like cod. You don't need to have a superiority complex about it.
@Majora101 if FIFA and cod were objectively bad they would routinely get mediocre scores. Rather then constantly get 8s or higher. Unless you are going to tell me there is a big conspiracy that big publishers buy ratings then there goes your objectivity argument. The way you belittled the games as something from an average twelve year old dusty shelf and suggest it points to a culture in decline is why you are stuck up... it has nothing to do with you disagreeing with me.
That is honestly a very very sad list with so many Fifa's
Soooo gaming is basically dead in the uk. What a terrible, terrible list!!
@Matthew010
Last one I touched was World cup 98.
@matdub "You were right the first time. It's soccer. Football is Aussie rules or Rugby league/union"
Oh. I would have thought a game called football might, I don't know, be predominantly be played with your foot?
I know that's an outlandishly crazy conclusion to make.
@Gerald "But that never played as well as Kick Off 2, or Sensible Soccer (IMO). ISS played so much better than FIFA on the N64"
I would love a Sensible World of Soccer on Switch! Also agreed On ISS on N64.. it's not even funny how many hours I put into those games
Eh, I prefer PES for my yearly annihilation of Rangers. Black Ops is one of the better COD games, GTA V has a great single player mode but could never get into the online and Minecraft is great fun too. I don't think there's any point getting annoyed over this, it's just proof that casual games sell the most which is blindingly obvious to anyone with half a brain. Of course number 1 wasn't Nier Automata or Yakuza 0, both two of the greatest games of the decade but rather niche. Games aimed at the masses sell well, just like movies, just like music.
I love video games and I love FIFA - not ashamed at all. I’ll happily whack a few goals in between sessions of other games.
I’ll also pay £30 and you can always pay £30 on release day if you keep an eye out a year for updated kits rosters and leagues if I want. I’ll say that last few years I skipped a year but was happy to buy 20 as it had Salford in it for first time and wanted to manager career as them
@Majora101 well you shouldn't have thrown in comparisons to 12 year olds insinuating they don't know any better and also a cultural decline insinuating you're above others if you didn't want to come off as arrogant. Great you eat at McDonald's too. Congrats.
"The fact games like FIFA regularly score as high as 8/10 is more demonstrative of how unfortunately willing many undemanding people are to buy the same product repeatedly to tide them over until the next dopamine rush than it is of any particularly high quality inherent to the product." This comment also sounds like you feel your taste in gaming is superior to professional websites as well as gamers who apparently don't have good taste.
The fact that Pokemon scores well and sells well does mean that most people think the games are worth their price. Similarly to FIFA and cod. If the games weren't received well they wouldn't sell well.
It's ok to be condescending. Just own it. Don't pretend all of a sudden you're not that guy when that's exactly what you are. McDonald's or not.
There is nothing wrong with FIFA could it be improved absolutely but as a reaction of footy and especially with its focus on premier league and English leagues for casual gamers and gamers who love footy it’s more than good enough for sessions with mates or living the dream taking your team to league/cup glory. Dunno why people take it so seriously.
Some people just wanna have fun. Fifa is a good game for that.
@Stocksy I don't know why people disliked your comment. I feel the dislike button is for offensive, rude, incorrect comments. Here we just down vote if we all don't think alike.
@Stocksy @sixrings Agreed. I noticed the thumbs down and honestly don't have a clue why.
Whoever it was, clearly has some kind of issue with someone enjoying playing a particular game.
I disagree with there being 'nothing wrong with FIFA'; FUT, in my opinion, is pretty egregious, and the full priced "roster update" on Switch FIFA 20 was in pretty poor taste (I actually paid about £20 for Switch FIFA 20 physical shortly after release, which would have been a reasonable price for a FIFA 19 roster update IMO).
As a game of football though, it's enjoyable and I've put somewhere around 250 hours into it so far this season.
@Majora101 "I see no reason not to have compared the act of repeatedly purchasing EA sports titles to the behavior of twelve year-olds — the average EA sports game player will tell you they simply want to have fun with these titles, and there is nothing wrong with that. It's fair to state however that most activities twelve year-olds engage in are probably for fun"
It's fair to state that most activities anyone, of any age group, choose to engage in are probably for fun. I don't think it's exclusive to people under the age of thirteen.
Shocker.
And I didn't play any of them...
@Quarth pretty much the same, but on pc
Not surprised to see FIFA dominating, Football is the national sport and especially from 11-15 it was the best Football game around (PES is wrestling that crown back now).
Most interesting thing to me there is how old they all are. Shows how physical game sales have dropped off.
@Majora101 I wouldn't use the word "condescending" about someone I don't know. People can have the own views about things, it doesn't bother me either way.
The reality is, like it or hate it, people vote with their wallets. They voted FIFA in five times. Time to move on with our lives.
Most UK gamers buy 2 games a year, Fifa and CoD.
So many people's PS4's are a Fifa machine.
@Matthew010 I can say without regret that i bought all of those fifa's...🤗
@Deljo again. Why does "I can say without regret that I bought all of those FIFA's..." deserve a downvote.
@Razer based on some good logic in here the UK must be a country full of 12 year old boys then.
So, basically the UK likes shootin' and football.
@SuperGhirahim64 @Cotillion and according to many on here who I assume like different things it's super depressing others like shooters and FIFA.
@sixrings i live here and unfortunately it's just how it is.
All the "road mans" and the "estate chavs" aged between 16 and 23 all have PS4's with about 3 or 4 games and all of them are CoD games and Fifa that they play for 1 or 2 weeks when it comes out then they go back to doing other stuff like trying to make music or on a darker side, sell drugs/do them/drink/loiter/go on nights out - i know we may claim otherwise but i still see more youngsters outside, especially when their in late teens and those hormones are in overdrive.
Those people far out number genuine gamers in my country, most grow out of that stuff in their mid 20s but they are never really full time gamers.
Out of all the friends i have known since growing up till now (i am 35)... 5 of us are real gamers and maybe 3 or 4 more have a PS4 or Xbox but they don't play much - i have 20+ friends that i see on a semi regular basis, obviously not all know each other (like we're in some big gang lol), these are people connected to me, and not all too each other.
Basically of all the people i know within my age group less than 50% own a gaming console and of that number only 50% are considered real gamers (buy games other than Fifa and CoD and come online to discuss games)...
This is also another factor but this is a broader one - most kids in the UK actually tend to stop gaming after 25, both my brothers have too as well as all my extended family, none play games anymore. I am the only one left in my entire family that now plays games. My closest brother stopped about a year back due to time constraints but he may pick it back up. But that might give you an idea of what i mean. - back in the ps2/GC days and most of the xbox 360/Ps3 days all my cousins and both my brothers played games regularly.
10 years later and i am the only one... 10 years is the time most of us passed 25 with only my little cousin whose 24 now.
Theres 13 of us in total.... and this isn't just my family, my friends too and im certain many other UK gamers have seen the same.
well I dunno. I don't like classifying gamers as if there's some sort of class system. If you like cod and FIFA then you're still a gamer to me. I'm not superior simply because I try out different types of games. And to be honest although I play all the Zeldas, Mario's, metroids, other Nintendo games some of my best times were playing both FIFA and cod.
@sixrings nah man if you play CoD or Fifa for 1-2 weeks of when it gets released then not turn on your PS4 again until the next installment - you are no gamer.
Class has nothing to do with it... just because you very seldom play a game does not make you a gamer.
(When i say you, i don't actually mean you personally)
@Razer I mean they bought a ps4. They didn't have to. They have an intention to play games. Once we get into true gamer conversations are we going to start listing our credentials. Well I can finish super Mario in less than 6 minutes. I have beaten Zelda 2 the adventures of link on the Og nes without save states. I have some arcade cabinets in my basement. I have a lan party room. I go to fan expo just to play games before they're released to the public. I have Mario wall decals in my house. Owned every Nintendo console minus a virtua boy, a ps1,ps3, xb,360,one, dreamcast. Sadly I made it to Tokyo but not Kyoto in my travels. See if just sound like a weirdo when I list my gaming qualifications which is why I'd prefer not to list them nor debate if others are "real" gamers.
@sixrings nobody said you need to list your "credentials". (If you can call gaming achievements credentials, lol)
Just that you are overly defensive about the type of games people play here (in the UK).
Nobody is saying you are not a real gamer. I am sure you have loads of games and you are a gamer, in fact i wouldn't expect you to be here if you weren't.
But how are you going to call some 19 year old "road man" who plays 30 hours of Fifa/CoD per year, a gamer?
Nobody is buying it... as you can clearly see by this comments section.
Not even me and i live here.
@SuperGhirahim64 i wouldn't say it's worrying really. It's been this way for a very long time and nothing bad has happened as a result.
Not like they stop selling games here because most of what everyone plays is Fifa and CoD.
In the same way that @sixrings is overly defensive about the type of games we play here.
Many others here seem overly concerned about the types of games we play, like its some sort of illness?
Everyone needs to pipe down and let others do their thing.
@Razer to be clear I don't care what people play. I just don't like people telling other people what they should play to be considered serious gamers.
Football fans are some of the most die hard loyal fans around.
And EA is laughing at you, year after year.
The UK sales chart looks like my worst nightmare TBH (baring Minecraft). Each to their own I guess.
@Tyranexx Either one is right that guys just dumb ozzie xD
Both soccer and football mean the same thing, Association Football
@Doktor-Mandrake Yep, didn't figure there was really much of a difference, whatever the term. I just know that what is known as "football" here is called American Football elsewhere.
As mentioned earlier, I love pointing out English differences. Different meanings and pronunciations for different areas of the planet that speak the same language is a fascinating topic for me.
Yearly roster updates made sense in a pre-internet (on mainstream consoles) world,. But now in a world where plenty of games get continual support for years, the business model doesn't really make sense anymore other than from a short term one.
Ah well, as long as sports fans keep buying nothing will change and 2k and EA will be able to repackage their existing sports games with a new year on the box for years to come.
That's a depressing list
What a shame uk. Your taste in games is awful
That list is depressing 😐 haha.
Worst taste in the world
I find this pretty sad really. There are sooo many awesome original games out there, with such creativity and imagination put into them, yet most people just play an inferior digital recreation of something they can do in real life anyway. I'd much rather play the latest Mario platformer (maybe even Super Mario Maker, where I can endlessly create my own Mario levels) or Breath of the Wild or God of War or Minecraft or Fortnite or whatever, but Fifa and the like is what all the casuals play, and I see this at my work in youth clubs too, so I'm not really surprised.
@sixrings so by that same analogy, someone who goes to a club once a year to get their groove on must be a pro dancer?
Can you see how that doesn't work?
If those kids played CoD or Fifa every single day, for about 30+ hours per week then you can call them gamers.
They play 30 hours a year... you cannot call them gamers. Stop fooling yourself.
They spend less than one days wage on games - you cannot call them gamers. Stop fooling yourself.
Just like i can't call myself a dancer just because i go to a club once a year and get my groove on... if i tried to call myself a dancer, what do you think someone who spends 30 hours a week dancing, would say? Do you think he/she would accept my claim?
Use your logic a bit mate.
Let's be honest everybody giving the UK grief for this list. The US list would swap fifa for madden and/or NBA 2k. Very few, if any countries would have any meaningful games on their lists.
Just to be clear, this list isn't an indication of what UK gamers play.
Because this list is dominated by casual gamers who buy 1 or 2 games per year. Which happen to be Fifa and CoD.
Actual UK gamers play many diverse types of games. But you won't get that indication from this list because casual gamers far out number us hardware gamers. Even in the younger teenage age groups.
@ObsidianEleven Fair point. That said I don't really like any of the sports that are called football. Cricket is the only sport I like. Actually I don't like cricket, I LOVE IT.
@matdub Oh No, I love it, yeah!
@Razer well when I played cod exclusively during the 360 years I easily played 30 hours a week. It's embarrassing how much time I sunk into black ops and modern warfare 2. The maps are ingrained in my memory I'll probably be able to draw the maps 40 years from now when I have dementia and can no longer remember who my wife is.
@Razer
And that's a sad state of affairs, though i always wonder why people keep buying the same annual games year in, year out.
Isn't it exactly the same game ?
Or do they just like the familiarity ?
( this is in reponse to comment 61 btw)
@Razer Or to put it another way it’s like judging a nation’s musical tastes by looking at the top 10, and thinking everybody is into boy bands and autotune vocals.
@KitsuneNight there is some logic behind all this.
You see if games like CoD and Fifa overhaul everything every year then you'll get people who moan that they changed too much and its no longer the game they fell in love with.
There is actual logic in the term "don't fix what isn't broken" - personally this doesn't appeal to me but im not blinded by my own hubris that i cannot see the appeal for some.
One can kick and scream all they want but those games are consistently within the top selling games every year.
So they certainly are doing something right.
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