6.9 million digital and physical games were sold in the UK during December, an increase of 2% over the same period in 2022.
This is based on GSD data, which tracks all physical game sales plus digital game sales from most major publishers.
It’s a strong result when you consider November and December didn’t feature too many big new releases. EA Sports FC 24 reclaimed No.1 for the month, and was boosted by some pre-Christmas sales activity.
November’s No.1, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, falls to No.2 in its second month on sale. Meanwhile, Hogwarts Legacy and Super Mario Bros Wonder were particularly popular Christmas titles, as both games saw a big jump in sales month-on-month. It was the strongest month for Nintendo’s new Mario game since it released in October.
There was one new game in the December charts, which was Ubisoft’s Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, which debuts at No.8.
According to GfK panel figures, just short of 500,000 games consoles were sold in the UK during December, which is 2% up over November and 7% up over the same time last year.
PS5 was the No.1 console once again, but sales did fall 19% over the month before. Nintendo Switch is the No.2 format with a sales spike of 39% over November, with Xbox Series S and X at No.3 with sales up 6% month-on-month.
In terms of accessories, 2.07 million add-on products were sold during December, which is a huge 63% jump over November and 10% up over the same period last year. Strong console sales meant that controllers dominated the charts, let by the White (No.1) and Midnight Black (No.2) DualSense controller. Strong sales of PS4 in December saw the DualShock 4 re-enter the Top Ten at No.7.
UK GSD December 2023 Top 10 (Digital and Physical)
Position | Title |
1 | EA Sports FC 24 (EA) |
2 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision Blizzard) |
3 | Hogwarts Legacy (Warner Bros) |
4 | Super Mario Bros Wonder (Nintendo)* |
5 | Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar) |
6 | Spider-Man 2 (Sony) |
7 | Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo)* |
8 | Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (Ubisoft) |
9 | Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar) |
10 | Nintendo Switch Sports (Nintendo)* |
*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.