FIFA 23, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and God of War Ragnarok tops UK December charts | UK Monthly Charts

reksveks

Member
Nearly 6.4 million video games were sold in the UK during December, a drop of nearly 8% over the year before.
2.85 million games were downloaded, while over 3.5 million games were bought physically.
FIFA 23 was the best-selling game of the month, followed by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Despite the PS5 and PS4's larger install base, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's sales are relatively even between PlayStation platforms (representing 54% of sales) and Xbox consoles (representing 46%). The game was released close to major PlayStation exclusive God of War Ragnarok, which may have had an impact on the game's performance on Sony's formats.
God of War Ragnarok was No.3, although if Pokémon Violet and Scarlet sales are combined, that game would have been No.3.
There were a handful of new releases last month, although none of them made the Top Ten. In 14th place is EA's latest Need for Speed game, Unbound. The game's launch sales (first five weeks) are 44% down over 2019's Need for Speed Heat.
The Callisto Protocol is at No.16, but it's worth noting that digital sales for this game are missing from this chart. Finally, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion debuts at No.20.
Looking at GfK hardware figures (panel data, not upweighted), over 460,000 games consoles were sold during December 2022, a rise of 24% compared with November, but down 17% over last December 2021.
PS5 console sales were marginally up in December compared with the year before, while both Xbox Series S and X and Nintendo Switch sales were down.
Nintendo was narrowly the No.1 console of the Christmas period, ahead of PS5 in second place.
Over in accessories, 1.85 million add-on products were sold during December, a rise of 44% over November, but down 11% compared with December last year. Once again the market was led by controllers, with the PS5 DualSense controller at No.1.

Assuming its the UK chart and not EU as in the article

PositionTitle
1FIFA 23 (EA)
2Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard)
3God of War Ragnarok (Sony)
4Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
5Pokémon Violet (Nintendo)*
6LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (Warner Bros)
7Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo)*
8Nintendo Switch Sports (Nintendo)*
9Pokémon Violet (Nintendo)*
10Sonic Frontiers (Sega)
11Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar)
12Elden Ring (Bandai Namco)
13Just Dance 2023 (Ubisoft)
14Need for Speed Unbound (EA)
15NBA 2K23 (2K Games)
16The Callisto Protocol (Krafton)*
17Minecraft: Switch Edition (Mojang/Nintendo)*
18Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo)*
19Gotham Knights (Warner Bros)
20Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion (Square Enix)

Source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/fifa-...rok-tops-uk-december-charts-uk-monthly-charts

Tweet from Chris

 
Absolutely crazy that Sony spends all that money for cod but its nearly 50/50 with xbox anyway.

I can see why Sony are fighting tooth and nail to not lose the association with their platform.
 
Last edited:
Absolutely crazy that Sony spends all that money for cod but its nearly 50/50 with xbox anyway.

I can see why Sony are fighting tooth and nail to not lose the association with their platform.
Were the other two months split close-ish like this for MW2? I'm too lazy to check if they gave us any % for previous months :messenger_weary:
 
Absolutely crazy that Sony spends all that money for cod but its nearly 50/50 with xbox anyway.

I can see why Sony are fighting tooth and nail to not lose the association with their platform.
It has to do with Xbox being a western console.
Not to mention the console is more MP than PlayStation (halo+gears+sea of theives).

It would still have a strong position with MP games.
 
Were the other two months split close-ish like this for MW2? I'm too lazy to check if they gave us any % for previous months :messenger_weary:
I don't think we got platform splits for November honestly, at least not in the articles but did get october ones that i forgot about

"57% of sales came on PlayStation formats (42% on PS5), with nearly 33% on the Xbox platforms and nearly 11% on PC."

 
Physical media for life.
I almost got mad when my Xbox one s couldn't play Diablo 3 disc. It took me couple of tries to make it work.
It's good for old games, but physical disc is limited to the disc reader or whether you can protect it from a scratch. These makes me hesitant to invest in them.

I like digital, since it's easy download and don't have to worry about losing them.
 
Is the UK that important of a market to really put such importance on? Why do we care so much about this market? The constant threads. The last I saw it was barely bigger than France, smaller than Germany, and only slightly larger than Canada. Why is this market so special

You never get any "FIFA best selling game in Germany" threads. Why?
 
Last edited:
Is the UK that important of a market to really put such importance on? Why do we care so much about this market? The constant threads. The last I saw it was barely bigger than France, smaller than Germany, and only slightly larger than Canada. Why is this market so special

You never get any "FIFA best selling game in Germany" threads. Why?
Could I interest you in some Spain and Japan threads?
 
kratos-god-of-war.gif
 
Is the UK that important of a market to really put such importance on? Why do we care so much about this market? The constant threads. The last I saw it was barely bigger than France, smaller than Germany, and only slightly larger than Canada. Why is this market so special

You never get any "FIFA best selling game in Germany" threads. Why?
We get alot of data from the UK market thanks to gbiz, for other individual european markets there isn't an outlet that goes in depth.
 
Is the UK that important of a market to really put such importance on? Why do we care so much about this market? The constant threads. The last I saw it was barely bigger than France, smaller than Germany, and only slightly larger than Canada. Why is this market so special

You never get any "FIFA best selling game in Germany" threads. Why?
Because that is the actual data we consumers can get.
 
Is the UK that important of a market to really put such importance on? Why do we care so much about this market? The constant threads. The last I saw it was barely bigger than France, smaller than Germany, and only slightly larger than Canada. Why is this market so special

You never get any "FIFA best selling game in Germany" threads. Why?
As others said (feels a bit like us piling on), if someone gave me data for Germany, I would post it.
 
Absolutely crazy that Sony spends all that money for cod but its nearly 50/50 with xbox anyway.

I can see why Sony are fighting tooth and nail to not lose the association with their platform.

It's just the December split, a month where consoles are bought especially by a casual audience even more if the price of the hardware is sub 200£ as per Series S deals.
Those people had to play something and COD is a perfect casual title.
Sony was selling a 539£ bundle already including one of the best exclusives of the year.

What I find surprising is that even with all the deals Xbox Series hardware sales were lower than last year and given the wide availability of Series S that's even more surprising since in 2021 Microsoft was definetly more supply constrained.
 
Nintendo is sleeping on some big PR here by not releasing digital figures!

Digital + physical top list and no digital sales included for Switch and Pokémon is still #5.
 
Absolutely crazy that Sony spends all that money for cod but its nearly 50/50 with xbox anyway.

I can see why Sony are fighting tooth and nail to not lose the association with their platform.

GOW:R came out about a week later that it. Kinda hard to sell "THAT" many games in the same month.
 
Its crazy the amount of physical Nintendo sales, do we have data on the digital vs physical split for Switch?
Can't find any figures for 2022 but found several websites reporting that physical was 47% in 2021.

So in total, like for the other platforms, Nintendo's figures could be roughly 2x compared to what is used to form this list! 🔥
 
As others said (feels a bit like us piling on), if someone gave me data for Germany, I would post it.
No exact numbers, unfortunately but we get monthly software charts for Germany.

E2yzcNv.jpg


We get weekly charts for other European countries too (France, Italy, Switzerland etc.)


Its crazy the amount of physical Nintendo sales, do we have data on the digital vs physical split for Switch?
Can't find any figures for 2022 but found several websites reporting that physical was 47% in 2021.

So in total, like for the other platforms, Nintendo's figures could be roughly 2x compared to what is used to form this list! 🔥

Latest figure from Nintendo was 38.5%, but it will obviously vary game to game and market to market.
 
Who knew that come the Xbox Series X and Playstation 5 generation, Konami would throw in the towel, and leave FIFA as the ONLY football game you can get for consoles because the competition is next to non-existent.... and the fact that to this day there has never been a tennis game as good as Top Spin 4
 
We get weekly charts for other European countries too (France, Italy, Switzerland etc.)
That's true. I find it a bit more vague but could include it. I suspect that I would be a bit too lazy to do so honestly, might not be an issue if I do it at the monthly level along with the EU article.
 
That's true. I find it a bit more vague but could include it. I suspect that I would be a bit too lazy to do so honestly, might not be an issue if I do it at the monthly level along with the EU article.
Maybe the monthly EU one could contain the latest European country charts. Let me know if you need any help.
 
No exact numbers, unfortunately but we get monthly software charts for Germany.

E2yzcNv.jpg


We get weekly charts for other European countries too (France, Italy, Switzerland etc.)





Latest figure from Nintendo was 38.5%, but it will obviously vary game to game and market to market.
Well there it is, Pokémon at #1.
The top list needs to be altered, if Nintendo refuse to report digital figures then at least talk about how the list would look if all digital sales were removed for the other platforms too. Don't hide how much of a juggernaught Switch is. It's the same thing on the NPD lists, no digital sales included for Switch games.
 
As in the list in the OP?

If so, different months and markets. I will do a EU thread once Chris posts the article .
Not you but those adding up the figures for these lists.
It's not a problem when it's a boxed chart but when it's digital+physical they need to show digital+physical for all platforms or do some math and add in estimated digital figures based on the known digital/physical split.
It makes no sense to make a numbered list and claim that a game with sales figures from both physical and digital sales is winning over a game where only physical sales are counted. It's apples and pears.
 
Not you but those adding up the figures for these lists.
It's not a problem when it's a boxed chart but when it's digital+physical they need to show digital+physical for all platforms or do some math and add in estimated digital figures based on the known digital/physical split.
It makes no sense to make a numbered list and claim that a game with sales figures from both physical and digital sales is winning over a game where only physical sales are counted. It's apples and pears.
Its the best they can do with the data they have. I'm sure all trackers would love to include Nintendo's digital data if they would only share it with them.
 
Absolutely crazy that Sony spends all that money for cod but its nearly 50/50 with xbox anyway.

I can see why Sony are fighting tooth and nail to not lose the association with their platform.
Playstation fans had to spend money on Ragnarok as well. Xbox had no exclusives for months should be ahead.
 
Its the best they can do with the data they have. I'm sure all trackers would love to include Nintendo's digital data if they would only share it with them.
No it's not. They already use lots of estimations since they can't track all sales for all stores, they could easily add estimated digital sales with official digital split percentage if they wanted to. The * digital purchases not included notification on a digital+physical list should never happen.
 
No it's not. They already use lots of estimations since they can't track all sales for all stores, they could easily add estimated digital sales with official digital split percentage if they wanted to. The * digital purchases not included notification on a digital+physical list should never happen.
The only other option would simply be to not include Nintendo games on there at all. Digital splits will be very different for different games and at different times. Their retail estimations are at least based on solid figures from a % of stores.

There's not a lot of data they can work with to estimate the different digital splits for each Nintendo game every single week.
 
Last edited:
The only other option would simply be to not include Nintendo games on there at all. Digital splits will be very different for different games and at different times. Their retail estimations are at least based on solid figures from a % of stores.

There's not a lot of data they can work with to estimate the different digital splits for each Nintendo game every single week.
Do everything physical then. There is just no excuse to do a digital+physical list this way as far as I'm concerned, the list is obviously very false.
 
Do everything physical then. There is just no excuse to do a digital+physical list this way as far as I'm concerned, the list is obviously very false.
So trackers should stop using their digital data just because Nintendo won't share theirs? The trakcers aren't going to format their charts around the wishes of one major publisher, and nor should they.
 
So trackers should stop using their digital data just because Nintendo won't share theirs? The trakcers aren't going to format their charts around the wishes of one major publisher, and nor should they.
Isn't the whole point of the list to provide information on which games are selling the most?
The current list doesn't show that.
It's like doing a worldwide console sales list for Playstation and Xbox and then not include sales figures for Europe for Playstation and state that Xbox is the best selling console.
What's the point? What does the list show?
 
Is the UK that important of a market to really put such importance on? Why do we care so much about this market? The constant threads. The last I saw it was barely bigger than France, smaller than Germany, and only slightly larger than Canada. Why is this market so special

You never get any "FIFA best selling game in Germany" threads. Why?
Because OP wants to post UK threads.

If you don't care for them, don't come into them. If you want another country's thread, then do the leg work and make your own.

Honestly, people whinging about things they have no interest in.
 
Isn't the whole point of the list to provide information on which games are selling the most?
The current list doesn't show that.
It's like doing a worldwide console sales list for Playstation and Xbox and then not include sales figures for Europe for Playstation and state that Xbox is the best selling console.
What's the point? What does the list show?
The point of the list is for the tracker to show the total sales (retail and digital) for each game. Unfortunately this is impossible for them to do for the small number of publishers who don't share their digital data (such as Nintnedo). Therefore their options are:

1. Include these games with a *
2. Don't include those games at all

Even number 2 isn't really a viable option, since their customers are paying them to find out what all game sold, including Nintendo's. They're doing the best they can with the information available.
 
The point of the list is for the tracker to show the total sales (retail and digital) for each game. Unfortunately this is impossible for them to do for the small number of publishers who don't share their digital data (such as Nintnedo). Therefore their options are:

1. Include these games with a *
2. Don't include those games at all

Even number 2 isn't really a viable option, since their customers are paying them to find out what all game sold, including Nintendo's. They're doing the best they can with the information available.
I understand the problem but I think it creates a false narrative on how the industry looks right now. In another thread someone was surprised that the new Pokémon had bombed so badly that even the several years old RDR2 sold more. In reality it hasn't bombed at all and was very likely the best selling game.
Don't know how it can be fixed without using estimated figures though.
 
Last edited:
I understand the problem but I think it creates a false narrative on how the industry looks right now. In another thread someone was surprised that the new Pokémon had bombed so badly that even the several years old RDR2 sold more. In reality it hasn't bombed at all and was very likely the best selling game.
Don't know how it can be fixed without using estimated figures though.
A bigger asterix maybe? Or using a different colour text? It would be great if Nintendo shared digital data, but I can't see that happening anytime soon.
 
Top Bottom