Over 4.55 million video games were sold during November in the UK, a drop of 3% over the same period in 2022.

This is according to GSD data, which tracks digital and physical video game sales.

The drop is due to a weaker release slate in November this year. Last year saw major launches including God of War Ragnarök on PlayStation platforms and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet for Nintendo Switch.

There was one major title that helped keep sales strong, and that was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Activision Blizzard’s shooter was comfortably No.1 for the month. Last year’s Call of Duty released in October, which meant that Call of Duty had a stronger November this year than the year before.

However, despite efforts from Activision to position Modern Warfare 3 as a full sequel to last year’s game, fans were not so convinced and first three weeks of sales for Modern Warfare 3 are just under 38% lower compared with last year’s Modern Warfare 2.

Another decent release last month was the arrival of Hogwarts Legacy on Nintendo Switch. Sales of the Warner Bros game jumped 100% month-on-month due to Switch release (plus a bit of Black Friday discounting).

EA Sports FC 23 sold slightly fewer in November compared with FIFA 23 last year, but it was close. EA’s new football title saw some strong discounts during the Back Friday sales period.

It was another big month for game sales over the Black Friday week, with 1.66 million games sold in the UK, led by EA Sports FC 24. Compared with Black Friday last year, sales are very slightly up by 0.8%, which is impressive when you consider the general lack of new releases.

Elsewhere, Football Manager 2024 makes No.6, with sales down 4% compared with last year’s title. The only other new game of note is RoboCop: Rogue City, which reached No.11 in the charts for November.

PS5 delivers big month for the console market

Moving over to GfK data, over 486,000 games consoles (panel data) was sold in the UK during November, a sharp rise of 176% month-on-month, and up 32% over November last year.

This was due to heavy discounting around Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo consoles over the Black Friday period. It was really the first Black Friday where PlayStation 5 was able to participate (the console was almost entirely sold out during this period in 2022, 2021 and 2020).

Sony’s machine accounted for practically half of the games consoles sold during November. PS5 sales were up 149% month-on-month, and up 126% over last November.

In second place for the month was Xbox Series S and X, which saw a hefty 231% sales jump month-on-month, again due to Black Friday discounting. Compared with November 2022, Xbox sales are up 4%.

Nintendo Switch took third spot, with sales up 175% month-on-month but down 19% over the same period last year.

Year-to-date, console sales are up 12% over the year before, driven by improved sales for PS5.

Elsewhere, 1.275 million peripherals and accessories were sold in the UK across November (GfK panel data), which is a rise of 118% over October but down 3.5% over last November.

The new PlayStation Portal accessory for PS5 debuts at No.5. The product sold out at UK retail last month.

UK GfK November 2023 Top 10 (Digital and Physical)

*Digital data unavailable

GSD digital data includes games from participating companies sold via PC digital stores, 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, Kepler, 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.