Elden Ring Tops Europe Sales in First Half of 2022, Switch and Xbox Series X|S Sales Increase - Sales

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Elden Ring took first place on the Europe charts for the first half of 2022, according to GSD data reported by GamesIndustry. 

Elden Ring was the best-selling game in the UK, while Pokémon Legends: Arceus was number one in Germany and France. FIFA 22 dominated in Spain and Italy.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus came in third place, however, Nintendo does not provide digital sales. It is possible with digital sales the game could have been in first or second place. The game was the best-selling game at retail.

There were a total of 76.1 million games sold in the first half of 2022 across Europe, which is an increase of 13.5 percent compared to the same period in 2021.

32 million of the games sold were at retails, while 44 million games were sold digitally. Retail sales include all games sold in a box, while digital data mainly covers AAA game developers, minus Nintendo.

Germany was the biggest market in Europe, with nearly 15.4 million games sold. This is a 13.6 percent increase year-over-year. The UK came in second with 14.2 million games sold, which is up two percent. France came in third with 10.2 million games sold, which is up 12.1 percent.

There was just over two million video game consoles sold across Europe in the first half of 2022. However, it should be noted the hardware charts exclude two major European countries - the UK and Germany. This is down by over 21 percent year-over-year.

Nintendo switch sales are up seven percent compared to the same period a year ago and Xbox Series X|S sales are up by nine percent. PlayStation 5 sales are down by nearly 44 percent year-over-year.

The Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console, while the PlayStation 5 came in second, and the Xbox Series X|S in third.

Top 20 Games in Europe in January to June 2022, according to GSD (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.

Digital data includes games sold in Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, UAE and United Kingdom.

Physical data includes all games, but only those sold in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom.

Console hardware sales cover Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Accessories sales cover the same markets, but doesn't include Switzerland.

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 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.

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18 Comments

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nintendocentral (on 21 July 2022)

How has the big 3 been doing in the individual European countries hardware wise. Is Nintendo winning in all regions?

• +2

UnderwaterFunktown nintendocentral (on 22 July 2022)

I don't know how many countries we get individual data from, but we do know the Switch is in the lead in Spain and the UK at least, tho it's a pretty close race between all 3 in the latter. It's also a very safe bet that it's ahead in France as the Switch is really strong there.

• +1

nintendocentral UnderwaterFunktown (on 23 July 2022)

I was wondering because vgchartz used to give breakdowns of Europe which included UK, Germany, and France. And I was wondering if they still estimate those countries on a weekly basis.

• +1

Kakadu18 (on 24 July 2022)

According to Chris Dring Fifa 22 was just 12% ahead of Pokemon Legends: Arceus, so with digital PLA is basically #2.

• 0

Manlytears (on 21 July 2022)

Breaks my heart to see a great game like Horizon losing to a piece of @#$%$#@ like pkm legends: Arceus.

• -5

Qwark Manlytears (on 22 July 2022)

Even better that's only physical sales and it already released the year prior.

• 0

peachbuggy Manlytears (on 22 July 2022)

A good starting point to explain your heartbreak is that, in fact Legends Arceus isn't a piece of @##@

• 0

Manlytears peachbuggy (on 22 July 2022)

No, i'm prety sure it's a @#$%&*^#@ game.

• -2

peachbuggy Manlytears (on 22 July 2022)

In your opinion but unfortunately for you not in the majority of the publics' opinion.
Anyway. It's just as easy to say Horizon is a piece of @##@. See?

• -1

Manlytears peachbuggy (on 22 July 2022)

Fair enough

• 0

Qwark (on 21 July 2022)

Horizon bombed hard, losing to a Lego game and even GTA V and probably even MK8 if you would estimate it's digital sales.

• -8

kazuyamishima Qwark (on 21 July 2022)

Did Switch sports and especially cod vanguard bombed hard too, or just Horizon?

Asking for a friend

• +2

Qwark kazuyamishima (on 21 July 2022)

Mostly Horizon and COD since these games did cost 100 of millions to make. Though for COD it's mostly sour milk Horizon is a pretty fresh franchise.

• -5

kazuyamishima Qwark (on 21 July 2022)

My friend also has the following questions:

• Is the saga horizon Doomed? Does it has any hope left?

• Is the term Globally in the US still valid or now is Globally in Europe or Globally in Japan?
  
  He said: “Thanks in advance”

• +1

Qwark kazuyamishima (on 21 July 2022)

Let's do some basic math. Horizon probably did cost around 250 million dollar to make including marketing (making it did cost 110 million, but marketing is expensive). So for it to be considered successful it should at least make 450 to 600 million dollar. If it doesn't do so than Sony very well might pull the plug after Call of the Mountain. The fantastic beast series is also canned because of it. The game didn't do better in either Japan or US,hell it's probably doing better in Europe since it sometimes charts high when PS5 is in stock.

• -4

scrapking Qwark (on 21 July 2022)

4 of the 5 games ahead of it on the list are multiplatform games, so it's the second-from-the-top game in the list that's for a single platform. Which doesn't seem like an abject failure to me.

• +6

Qwark scrapking (on 22 July 2022)

Edit only half of Nintendo games there sales are counted since they don't offer digital sales. Also Horizon got outsold by a game released in the PS3 era. Which already sold over 100 million units.

• -1

scrapking Qwark (on 23 July 2022)

Wow, this is weird, I'm usually considered an Xbox enthusiast, and here I am defending Horizon 2 for PS, LOL.

But I'll defend anyone I think deserves defending, whether I'm a fan of it or not (and in this case, I'm definitely not).

GTA V routinely tops sales charts across multiple platforms, so coming in after that is no shame IMO.

This sales chart is only for Europe, and not even all of Europe, and Horizon 2 was only beat by a handful of popular multiplatform games and a Nintendo first-party game. That doesn't seem like a disaster to me. But whatevs.

• +1