2.83m games were sold in the UK last month, up 11.2% over the year before.

According to GSD data, 1.75 million of those games were sold via digital download stores, which is a rise of nearly 36% year-on-year. However, just short of 1.1m games were sold via physical retailers, which is a drop of 14% over October 2021.

The success is all down to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The Activision Blizzard shooter was an October release this year, whereas last year’s title, Call of Duty: Vanguard, launched in November.

Even so, it was a significantly improved performance for the franchise. Modern Warfare 2’s opening week sales are almost 92% higher than what Vanguard managed.

57% of sales came on PlayStation formats (42% on PS5), with nearly 33% on the Xbox platforms and nearly 11% on PC.

Also helping the market to grow was FIFA 23, which enjoyed a better October than FIFA 22 managed last year, with sales up nearly 6%.

Also new this month is Gotham Knights, which manages No.3 in the charts. The title’s sales after two weeks are very slightly ahead of what last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy managed over the same period.

Next on the new release charts is Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope at No.5. The game’s launch isn’t as strong as what its predecessor managed back in 2017, although as the only major Mario game to launch this Christmas, we should expect the title to stick around over the next month.

Elsewhere, PGA Tour 2K23 debuts at No.7, Persona 5 Royal comes in at No.14, and Bayonetta 3 debuts at No.15. Also new and from Japan is Dragon Ball: The Breakers, which makes No.19.

PS5 narrowly holds off Xbox Series X and S

Console hardware sales dipped very slightly in the UK in October compared with the month before, according to the latest GfK figures.

Just under 175,000 units were sold last month (GfK panel data), which is a drop of 1%.

This was mainly due to a marginal drop in sales for the PS5, with sales down 6% compared with September. Sony’s console very (very) narrowly remained the No.1 platform, with sales of the Xbox Series X and S family of consoles just behind it. Microsoft sold roughly the same number of Xbox Series consoles in October as it did in September.

Nintendo Switch is still in third position, although sales did rise slightly in October, up 5% month-on-month. Nintendo Switch has now overtaken Xbox One in terms of all-time console sales in the UK, and is closing in on PlayStation 3.

For the year-to-date, there is just 40,000 console sales separating Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5.

Over in the land of accessories and peripherals, 669,029 add-on products were sold in the UK during October, GfK figures show. This is a drop of 9% month-on-month and down 7.5% year-on-year.

The market continues to be dominated by sales of official Xbox and PlayStation controllers. The highest charting third-party product is the PowerA Wired Xbox Controller (Black), which is in eighth spot, with the white version at No.13.

The GSD UK October Top 20 Video Games (Digital + Physical)

* Digital data unavailable

GSD digital data includes games from participating companies sold via Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo Eshop. Major participating companies are Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Embracer Group (including Gearbox, Koch Media, Sabre Interactive), Focus Entertainment, Konami, Marvellous Games, Microids, Microsoft (including Bethesda), Milestone, Nacon, Paradox Interactive, Quantic Dream, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Take-Two, Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Nintendo and 505 Games are the notable absentees, alongside smaller studios.