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[reksveks]

At a glance:

• Video game sales fell, but new game sales increased year-on-year by 16%
• PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch sales down, but Xbox sales up
• FIFA 23, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Pokémon and Elden Ring drove game sales
• UK ahead of Germany as Europe's biggest games market

159 million console and PC games were sold across tracked European markets in 2022, a drop of 7.1% over the year before.
This is according to the latest GSD data, which tracks physical and digital game sales across Europe. It tracks all physical sales in major European countries (see list below), and digital sales from most major AAA publishers (the main exception is Nintendo, which doesn't share digital data) in every territory across Europe. The data does not include games from indie teams.
82.5 million games were sold via digital downloads, with the remaining 76.6 million sold via physical retailers.
If we focus purely on new games (so titles released in 2022) game sales are actually up 16% compared with the new games released in 2021.
Sales of FIFA 23 were up 3% over FIFA 22 year-on-year, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sales were up nearly 73% over Call of Duty: Vanguard.
If Pokémon Scarlet and Violet sales were combined, the game would have charted at No.6 (replacing its sister title, Pokémon Legends: Arceus). It's worth noting that the Pokémon games do not include digital sales, so they may have charted higher.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet's sales were 13% bigger year-on-year than 2021's Diamond and Pearl remakes, and 8% bigger than the previous mainline releases (2019's Pokémon Sword and Shield).
In terms of the average digital/physical split (the ratio to which the average game was bought physically vs digitally), 64% of sales were via digital download stores, which is actually a drop on the 65% figure from 2021. We are only including games that are sold both physically and digitally in this analysis and we are only counting countries where physical and digital data is available.
Other key sellers in the Top Ten include LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (No.8), and three PlayStation exclusives: God of War Ragnarok (No.7), Horizon: Forbidden West (No.9) and Gran Turismo 7 (No.10). Outside of Pokémon, Mario Kart 8: Deluxe was the best-selling Switch game at No.11, with Nintendo Switch Sports close behind at No.13.

In terms of countries, the UK was the No.1 games market across Europe (game sales down 6% year-on-year), followed by Germany (game sales down 13%), and then France (game sales down 3%). Both Spain (up 1%) and Italy (up 2%) saw an increase in game sales year-on-year.
The UK was the best performing market for games such as FIFA, Call of Duty, LEGO Star Wars and Elden Ring. Whereas Germany and France were the strongest markets for Nintendo Switch titles, such as Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Mario Kart 8: Deluxe, Nintendo Switch Sports and Pokémon Violet/Scarlet.
FIFA 23 was the best-selling game in most major markets, with just a couple of exceptions (such as Finland, where Elden Ring was No.1).
Games that didn't make the Top 20 but are in the wider Top 50 includes NBA 2K23 (No.23), It Takes Two (No.26), Splatoon 3 (No.27)*, WWE 2K22 (No.32), Mario Strikers: Battle League Football (No.34)*, Sonic Frontiers (No.43), Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (No.44), Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (No.46) and Dying Light 2: Stay Human (No.48)*.

Nintendo Switch continues to lead across Europe​

In terms of console sales, not every major market is tracked (Germany and UK data is missing – for UK figures, check our latest monthly charts story). However, for the tracked territories, 5.3 million consoles were sold last year, a drop of 25% over the year before.
Nintendo Switch was comfortably the No.1 console, despite sales falling by 15% over the year before. PS5 was a clear No.2 (sales down 35%), while the Xbox Series S and X consoles were the only platforms to report a sales growth year-on-year (up 4.4%) but it is in third position.
Switch was the No.1 selling console in almost every country with a few exceptions. In Denmark and Sweden, PS5 is the No.1 console, whereas Xbox Series S and X was No.1 in Norway.

In terms of peripherals (including toys-to-life), sales were down 10% across tracked European markets to 18 million products sold. The best-selling accessories were the PS5 DualSense controller (sales up 12% year-on-year), followed by the PS4 DualShock controller (sales down 3.2%), then the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controllers (sales down 23.7%), before the Xbox Series Wireless Controller (down 32.2%).
The best-selling accessory that isn't a controller is the Sony PS5 Pulse 3D Headset at No.5, which saw sales drop 3.6% over 2021.
In terms of points cards and wallet, 22.4 million of these products were sold across tracked European markets in 2022, a drop of 8% over the year before.

European GSD 2022 Top 20 (Digital + Physical)​

Position	Title
1	FIFA 23 (EA)
2	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard)
3	Elden Ring (Bandai Namco)
4	Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
5	FIFA 22 (EA)
6	Pokémon Legends: Arceus (Nintendo)*
7	God of War Ragnarok (Sony)
8	LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (Warner Bros)
9	Horizon: Forbidden West (Sony)
10	Gran Turismo 7
11	Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo)*
12	Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar)
13	Nintendo Switch Sports (Nintendo)*
14	Pokémon Violet (Nintendo)*
15	F1 22 (EA)
16	Pokémon Scarlet (Nintendo)*
17	Minecraft: SWitch Edition (Nintendo/Mojang)*
18	Assassin's Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft)*
19	Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Nintendo)*
20	Mario Party Superstars (Nintendo)*

European GSD 2022 Top 10 (Physical Only)​

Position	Title
1	FIFA 23 (EA)
2	Pokémon Legends: Arceus (Nintendo)
3	Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo)
4	Nintendo Switch Sports (Nintendo)
5	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard)
6	Horizon: Forbidden West (Sony)
7	God of War Ragnarok (Sony)
8	Pokémon Violet (Nintendo)
9	FIFA 22 (EA)
10	Gran Turismo 7

European GSD 2022 Top 10 (Digital Only)​

Position	Title
1	FIFA 23 (EA)
2	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard)
3	Elden Ring (Bandai Namco)
4	Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
5	FIFA 22 (EA)
6	Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar)
7	LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (Warner Bros)
8	God of War Ragnarok (Sony)
9	F1 22 (EA)
10	Gran Turismo 7 (Sony)

Spoiler: Data Restrictions

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, 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, 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.

 

[reksveks]

Fess got physical only, digital only and combined charts

 

[NiiloPielinen]

War, inflation and rising energy costs. It all adds up.

 

[Kadve]

I for one have bought much fewer games in the last year. With prices on the rise everywhere you just don't have the same money to spend on it.

 

[SaintALia]

With only one game in the TOP 10 Digital and Physical charts, Switch manages come to come out on top(unless those FIFA legacy editions are REALLY pulling their weight), but I thought Nintendo didn't give out digital sales...

"* Digital data unavailable"
Oh, nvm then. I'm guessing Nintendo must be doing really well on digital that's not showing how well that software is really doing.

​

 

[Luminoth-4545]

By using Nintendo's Quarterly fiscal report data , Nintendo shipped 6.27 million across Europe in 2021. A 15% decline would mean 5.33 million in 2022. From Jan 1st - Sep 30th 2022 Nintendo shipped 2.31 million Switch's so 3.02 million shipped from Oct 1st - Dec 31st? This would be a little down on the 3.38 million shipped last holiday quarter but still huge and the same as holiday 2019. Of course there is always going to be a slight difference when using and comparing shipped versus sell through numbers but this gives you a rough idea of how Switch performed across Europe in 2022 and during the holiday quarter.

Regional Hardware Shipments

 

[Tomi]

Europe is too expensive, people have less and less money to spend, inflation is high and this is just a start of downfall

 

[Kenpachii]

Inflation, energy prices, war.

 

[Paasei]

Inflation
War
Energy prices skyrocketing
No trust in (local) economy

Not the time to be buying expensive stuff that is seen as a luxury. Even groceries are becoming are luxury these days.

 

[Woopah]

My main takwawyas

• Elden Ring outdid all my expectaitons, never thought it would be this big
• For PS5 to be down YoY must mean Sony is diverting a lot of stock to North America to combat Xbox
• Its interesitng to see the different dynamics for different cointries. Nintendo is very strong in France and Germany, very weak in the Nordcs, and in the UK everyone is competetve.

With only one game in the TOP 10 Digital and Physical charts, Switch manages come to come out on top(unless those FIFA legacy editions are REALLY pulling their weight), but I thought Nintendo didn't give out digital sales...

"* Digital data unavailable"
Oh, nvm then. I'm guessing Nintendo must be doing really well on digital that's not showing how well that software is really doing.

​

Digital isnt has high as on Switch as on other platforms, but yes when you're comaping total sales of other games to retail only sales of Nintnedo games they are going to struggle to chart. They still have 8 or the top 20 sppots though.

 

[DenchDeckard]

No way the xbox isn't well over 20 million with this data. Every console is killing it this gen in respect. Sony only slipping behind ps4 due to constraints xbox seeing increases yoy across all major regions.

I think xbox could easily be close to 25 million with this data.

 

[Woopah]

No way the xbox isn't well over 20 million with this data. Every console is killing it this gen in respect. Sony only slipping behind ps4 due to constraints xbox seeing increases yoy across all major regions.

I think xbox could easily be close to 25 million with this data.

By itself, this data can;t tell us thta at all. We'd at least need to know what Xbox Series shipped in Europe last year.

 

[remember_spinal]

covid bump is over

 

[SLB1904]

Gta6 will balance things out

 

[DenchDeckard]

By itself, this data can;t tell us thta at all. We'd at least need to know what Xbox Series shipped in Europe last year.

Well let's just think logically.

Sony have announced they hit 30 mill? What was Sony at at the start of 2022? Around 15 million? And we know Microsoft eclipsed 11.5 million set by the previous xbox by january 2022. So let's say Microsoft are at around 12.5 or 13 mill by Jan 2022.

Now, Sony are at 15 million so far for the entire of 2022 right? Is that correct or am I off?

We know that Microsoft are basically neck and neck with Sony in both the US and UK.

How many consoles were sold in the US in 2022, I have no idea. But Sony and MS are basically tied there and its the world's largest region by a long shot.

Next we have japan that gains Sony like a 1.5 million positive over xbox.

Uk is next where Sony and Microsoft are basically tied again. A total of around 2.5 million consoles across all platforms. So not even a million units each here. More like 700k each. No advantage to Sony really. Third biggest region.

Then we have the entirety of Europe that's 5.5 mill consoles. Let's be Conservative here and give Sony a 2 to 1 lead which could or could not be true.

Switch. 2.5 mill
Ps5. 2 mill.
Xbox. 1 mill.

1 mill advantage for Sony.

So, with Japan and Europe we are at about 3.5mill advantage to Sony....so then we have the rest of the world, which I would need to understand how many consoles are sold in the rest of the world. We know the markets are much smaller than USA, Japan, UK and Europe so I imagine its gonna be tough for Sony to outsell Microsoft by 1.5million units there.

So simple mathematics would have Sony at 15mill to hit the 30mill and Microsoft simply must be around 10 million or more, maybe 11.5 to 12.

This would put them easily over 20 million units.

Unless, I'm being stupid and missing some key markets which I'm happy for people to raise up and make me feel like a dumb dumb this morning lol

 

[reksveks]

Too early for maths especially if I ain't getting paid but I think the mainland Europe minus Germany split between xbox and ps5 is bigger than 2:1.

The smarter people than me are saying cy22 for xbox was about 9m and ampere was saying 10.5m at the end of 2021.

 

[KingT731]

No way the xbox isn't well over 20 million with this data. Every console is killing it this gen in respect. Sony only slipping behind ps4 due to constraints xbox seeing increases yoy across all major regions.

I think xbox could easily be close to 25 million with this data.

If the PS5 is just over 30M then i would guess XBS are likely a tad under/over 20M based on the markets we know.

My main takwawyas

• Elden Ring outdid all my expectaitons, never thought it would be this big
• For PS5 to be down YoY must mean Sony is diverting a lot of stock to North America to combat Xbox
• Its interesitng to see the different dynamics for different cointries. Nintendo is very strong in France and Germany, very weak in the Nordcs, and in the UK everyone is competetve.

PS5 was barely available for half the year. Stock propped up around July/August and that was a worldwide trend.

 

[Ronin_7]

This year should be better with PS5 SLIM + Way More stock.

Sony Left EU to die & Switch is declining.

 

[jigglet]

covid bump is over

This. Can we stop with this shit about speculating about the whys and hows every time a company reports a drop. Everyone was stuck at home, now they're not. Oh the big fucking mystery.

 

[Woopah]

Well let's just think logically.

Sony have announced they hit 30 mill? What was Sony at at the start of 2022? Around 15 million? And we know Microsoft eclipsed 11.5 million set by the previous xbox by january 2022. So let's say Microsoft are at around 12.5 or 13 mill by Jan 2022.

Now, Sony are at 15 million so far for the entire of 2022 right? Is that correct or am I off?

We know that Microsoft are basically neck and neck with Sony in both the US and UK.

How many consoles were sold in the US in 2022, I have no idea. But Sony and MS are basically tied there and its the world's largest region by a long shot.

Next we have japan that gains Sony like a 1.5 million positive over xbox.

Uk is next where Sony and Microsoft are basically tied again. A total of around 2.5 million consoles across all platforms. So not even a million units each here. More like 700k each. No advantage to Sony really. Third biggest region.

Then we have the entirety of Europe that's 5.5 mill consoles. Let's be Conservative here and give Sony a 2 to 1 lead which could or could not be true.

Switch. 2.5 mill
Ps5. 2 mill.
Xbox. 1 mill.

1 mill advantage for Sony.

So, with Japan and Europe we are at about 3.5mill advantage to Sony....so then we have the rest of the world, which I would need to understand how many consoles are sold in the rest of the world. We know the markets are much smaller than USA, Japan, UK and Europe so I imagine its gonna be tough for Sony to outsell Microsoft by 1.5million units there.

So simple mathematics would have Sony at 15mill to hit the 30mill and Microsoft simply must be around 10 million or more, maybe 11.5 to 12.

This would put them easily over 20 million units.

Unless, I'm being stupid and missing some key markets which I'm happy for people to raise up and make me feel like a dumb dumb this morning lol

My main point was that this data doesn't really tell us about Xbox shipsments. We have to make several guesses/assumptions (like you did with the Xbox to PS% raito in Europe). Couple of other points tha came to my mind as I read your post:

• Sony were at 17.3 million at the end of 2021 and are now over 30 million so PS5 did at least 13 million
• The 5.3 million consoles sold in Europe mentioned in the article doesn't include the numbers from the UK or Germany, so the actual European are a bit higher#
• For US sales the December 2022 report has unfortunaltety bene delayed until 17 Jan, so we'll have to wait a bit longer for the data.

PS5 was barely available for half the year. Stock propped up around July/August and that was a worldwide trend.

It was a worldwide trend, but I think more stock went to North America I'd be very surpsied if PS5 sales were down 35% in that region. We'll see on 17 Jan.

 

[DenchDeckard]

My main point was that this data doesn't really tell us about Xbox shipsments. We have to make several guesses/assumptions (like you did with the Xbox to PS% raito in Europe). Couple of other points tha came to my mind as I read your post:

• Sony were at 17.3 million at the end of 2021 and are now over 30 million so PS5 did at least 13 million
• The 5.3 million consoles sold in Europe mentioned in the article doesn't include the numbers from the UK or Germany, so the actual European are a bit higher#
• For US sales the December 2022 report has unfortunaltety bene delayed until 17 Jan, so we'll have to wait a bit longer for the data.

It was a worldwide trend, but I think more stock went to North America I'd be very surpsied if PS5 sales were down 35% in that region. We'll see on 17 Jan.

Yeah will be interesting to get numbers.

So Sony only did 12.7 million in 2022 and they projected 18 mill? I didn't know they missed their target by over 5 million.

 

[Mr Moose]

Yeah will be interesting to get numbers.

So Sony only did 12.7 million in 2022 and they projected 18 mill? I didn't know they missed their target by over 5 million.

"To meet this strong demand, we will do our utmost to bring forward supply into the year-end holiday selling season and aim to exceed our FY22 forecast of 18 million units."
13M in the calendar year.

 

[remember_spinal]

Yeah will be interesting to get numbers.

So Sony only did 12.7 million in 2022 and they projected 18 mill? I didn't know they missed their target by over 5 million.

For the fiscal year not calendar year

The beginning of this calendar year 2022 had the worst of the supply issues for the PS5. The fiscal year is when it started to improve and where the projections come in, that ends in March 2023

 

[mckmas8808]

Yeah will be interesting to get numbers.

So Sony only did 12.7 million in 2022 and they projected 18 mill? I didn't know they missed their target by over 5 million.

How do people still confuse FY with CY?

 

[Woopah]

Yeah will be interesting to get numbers.

So Sony only did 12.7 million in 2022 and they projected 18 mill? I didn't know they missed their target by over 5 million.

Sony predicted 18 million from April 2022 to March 2023. In April to September 2022 it sold 5.7 million, so it needs to sell about 12 million in the other 6 months. Once we know its holiday sales, we'll have a better idea of whether they can hit their target.