UK Video Game Sales Drop for First Time Since 2012 - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 04 March 2020 / 4,359 Views
Retail video game sales in the UK have dropped in 2019 for the first time since 2012. Video game sales fell 19.8 percent in 2019 to 17.6 million games sold at UK retailers, according to figures from GfK. The games generated revenue of £602.5 million in revenue, which is a drop of 21.7 percent year-on-year. Digital sales saw an increase of just 1.1 percent to £3.17 billion, according to IHS estimates.
Combined together, the UK video game sales generated £3.77 billion in 2019, which is a 3.4 percent drop when compared to 2018. This is the first time sales have dropped in the UK since 2012. This is not a big surprise as 2012 and 2019 were the last full year of a console cycle before the launch of new hardware.
"The key message from the games business in 2019 is we need those two new consoles from PlayStation and Xbox -- and soon," said ERA CEO Kim Bayley.
The best-selling game in the UK at retail was FIFA 20 with sales of 1.5 million units. This is a big drop from the 1.9 million units FIFA 19 sold last year.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was the second best-selling game with sales of 1.19 million units. That is an increase over Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII, which sold 1.17 million units.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe came in third with sales of 465,062 units. This is 7,000 more units than it sold in 2018. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order came in fourth with sales of 438,465 units, which is better than EA's big 2018 game, Battlefield V, with sales of 313,1000 units.
Red Dead Redemption 2 ranks fifth with sales of 306,392 units. This is after it was the second best-selling game in 2018.
Here are the top 10 best-selling games in the UK at retail in 2019:
- FIFA 20 – 1,502,191
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare – 1,192,211
- Mario Kart 8: Deluxe – 465,062
- Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order – 438,465
- Red Dead Redemption 2 – 306,392
- FIFA 19 – 278,417
- Pokemon Sword – 273,991
- Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled – 267,285
- Grand Theft Auto V – 247,357
- The Division 2 – 237,226
Thanks GamesIndustry.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Tbf 2019 imo was noway near on par with previous years for quality games released. Before people jump on me, I'm not saying that the games were released in 2019 were all shit.
Just combine Pokemon sword and shield already.
Why buy games when the game that all the kids play is free?
Seeing both FIFAs on that list is rather sad.
Just combine Pokemon sword and shield already.
Waiting for early to mid 2020 and next gen.
Would Pokemon be above Star Wars if they added the separate skews (Sword,Shield,Double Pack)? Both Star Wars and Pokemon came out on the same day, just thought Pokemon would sell more than Jedi Fallen Order in the holidays.
I guarantee you if they'd combined the SKUs it would be in 3rd place. Shield sold a little more than half of Sword, and the double pack in some areas sold more than Shield, so you can roughly double Sword's numbers and be reasonably close to where the game's true total is. I'd estimate somewhere in between 500k and 600k, but mathematically it can't be more than a million even if the off chart SKUs got the most they could get and still be off the chart and even if you counted the double pack's sales double to reflect the actual number of copies. So 3rd place seems a guarantee to me.
