Video Game Sales Thread

[Xevross]

Three different Era insiders all just agreed that Switch is looking to be way over 2M in December NPD, perhaps close to 3M. I still maintain anything 2M+ would be incredible. And Benji said this about all 3:

New #1,122
So I'll just preface this here (as people will tag this post as proof I'm making things up if it doesnt come out exactly this way)

Holiday period is difficult to know for certain. Retailers have different promotions, inventory can vary wildly between them, etc. However I do have visibility to a good chunk and can use that to extrapolate to market within a margin of error.

With that said

December appears to be Switch over 2 million. Possibly significantly so but my data may be heavily favoring it. That said 2 million seems all but locked in. It will surpass PS4 in YTD hardware sales for 2018

Xbox One seems alright. Not explosive performance but not down significantly YoY. Should be able to get to around a mil give or take a bit

PS4 is looking fairly soft and possibly down YoY


I look forward to this post not being 100% accurate to the tiniest of margins and people parading around that I'm a fraud. But hey I share what I can

[Dr. Pezus]

Three different Era insiders all just agreed that Switch is looking to be way over 2M in December NPD, perhaps close to 3M. I still maintain anything 2M+ would be incredible.

Hype!

[Xevross]

Hype!

Check my edit for more info!

[Xevross]

UK physical games market falls 2.8% in 2018 | GamesIndustry.biz

XB1 and PS4 software declined slightly (12.7% and 9.7% respectively) , while Switch software saw a huge boost (+90.1%). Overall SW market share: PS4 42.2%, XB1 30.5%, Switch 24.0%.

Overall more consoles sold in the UK than last year, apparently 3% more.

PS4 #1 console for the year in the UK, and saw an increase in sales YOY. That's pretty rad, so we have the UK, US and Japan where PS4 has pretty much matched or beat 2017's HW total. If it can get close to the 20.2M it sold in 2017 that would be crazy.

Switch sales were also up by over 20% YOY in the UK, which is a healthy amount. If Switch hits 2.0M in December NPD then it will be 20% up YOY in the US as well, and Switch is looking to be over that. Once again US and UK prove to be very similar markets.

With Switch up by a lot and PS4 up, yet only a 3% growth YOY shows XB1 was quite heavily down YOY in the UK. Quite disappointing. On Era people are saying total console sales were just over 2.5M. Not sure where its coming from, but with that, console sales were roughly this in 2018:

PS4 1.1M
Switch 820k+ (+ due to the 'over' 20% up)
XB1 600k

Compared to 2017, which will have been approximately:

PS4 1.1M
Switch 680k
XB1 700k

Switch LT UK sales have also passed 1.5M, making it the second highest selling Nintendo console ever already. Crazy how little Nintendo usually sells in the UK (except for the Wii) and it shows how well the Switch is doing.

[Xevross]

We'll be revealing the UK's Top 20 best-selling physical games of the year tomorrow morning. Including genuine sales figures for every one of the 20

— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) January 2, 2019

Looking forward to this!

He also said Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold more in 2018 than 2017.

[Xevross]

Here is the UKIE/GfK Top 20 best-selling games of 2018:

1. FIFA 19 - 1,889,401

2. Red Dead Redemption 2 - 1,757,212

3. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 - 1,172,855

4. Spider-Man - 676,621

5. Mario Kart 8: Deluxe - 458,675

6. Far Cry 5 - 434,133

7. Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy - 430,551

8. God of War - 399,395

9. Forza Horizon 4 - 392,960

10. FIFA 18 - 351,788

11. Grand Theft Auto V - 339,805

12. Spyro Reignited Trilogy - 333,725

13. Battlefield V - 313,100

14. Assassin's Creed Odyssey - 305,937

15. Super Smash Bros Ultimate - 284,155

16. Super Mario Odyssey - 240,710

17. Call of Duty: WWII - 230,576

18. Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu - 227,767

19. Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 226,125

20. Fallout 76 - 218,534

UK video games (excluding hardware) generated £3.864 billion last year, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association.

Digital accounted for over £3 billion of that number, representing 80.1 per cent of the market. Digital grew 12.5 per cent year-on-year, whereas physical sales dropped slightly by 2.8 per cent (as revealed yesterday).

It seems a bit negative for the physical market, but these figures do not include hardware. And actually more consoles were sold in 2018 than in 2017. GamesIndustry.biz can reveal over 2.4 million games machines were sold in the UK last year. PS4 was the biggest selling console, with sales flat year-on-year, but Nintendo Switch was the biggest growth area, with Switch console sales up more than 20 per cent.

Indeed, physical remains a strong part of the games retail business. According to ERA, the best-selling game of the year was FIFA 19 with 2.5 million units sold... 1.89 million of those sales came physically. That means when it comes to AAA releases, digital sales only account for around 25 per cent of the games sold.

Fifa 18 was 20% digital last year, so digital share of sales grew by about 5% YOY it would seem.

And it would seem all the doom and gloom about the UK market was for naught. Physical down 3% but digital up 12.5% for overall pretty big growth.

[BananaKing]

Spider man did amazing sales. GoW did really good as well, amazing legs for it considering it launched with 90k.

Spyro did a lot better than I expected

Red dead redemption did amazing as well. Super legs. Over 1.1 million sold after launch week.

Battlefield 1 disappointed IMO. Just 300k~ is low for such a high profile game. Fallout IMO bombed.

Gta still doing these numbers is insane.

[Cute Pikachu]

Smash Bros doing almost 300k in a month is excellent growth.

FIFA gonna FIFA

Red Dead Redemption 2 is crazy
Spider-Man dang

Mario Kart Lol

Looks like if combined, Pokemon Let's Go is between 330k-350k Which is pretty good.

[Xevross]

Smash Bros doing almost 300k in a month is excellent growth.

FIFA gonna FIFA

Red Dead Redemption 2 is crazy
Spider-Man dang

Mario Kart Lol

Looks like if combined, Pokemon Let's Go is between 330k-350k Which is pretty good.

RDR2 isn't actually that crazy, if you asked me earlier in the year I would have said it'll beat fifa. And this isn't even a great year for fifa sales, as it turned out.

Spider-Man is very impressive though. And COD rebounded so much from its launch. It launched at way less than half of RDR2 and fifa and yet ended up at much more than half of their sales, very good legs.

Pokemon numbers are indeed great, bigger than BFV which launched around the same time. Wouldn't have expected that. BFV is very poor though, less than 1/3 of BF1. Fallout 76 is less than 1/4 of Fallout 4 as well.

Crash and Spyro are crazy as well, apparently we love those games in the UK.

[Xevross]

Spain Week 51:

01 (RE) PS4 Marvel's Spider-Man - 51,200 / 257,200
02 (02) PS4 FIFA 19 - 42,000 / 496,000
03 (04) PS4 Red Dead Redemption 2 - 31,000 / 312,000
04 (01) NSW Super Smash Bros Ultimate - 28,900 / 116,900
05 (03) NSW Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu!/Eevee! - 23,600 / 167,600

Spain Week 52:

01 (--) PS4 FIFA 19 - 34,000 / 530,000
02 (--) PS4 Red Dead Redemption 2 - 28,000 / 340,000
03 (--) PS4 Marvel's Spider-Man - 21,800 / 279,000
04 (--) NSW Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu!/Eevee! - 21,400 / 189,000
05 (--) NSW Super Smash Bros Ultimate - 21,100 / 138,000

PS4 sales were apparently crazy during week 51, after it had a 100 Euro price cut.

[Xevross]

This is the EMEAA chart of physical + digital, bear in mind no digital data for Nintendo (Switch), Bethesda or Konami games. These will be longer to get it seems, so here's the chart for last week (week 52 2018):

01 (01) FIFA 19 (ELECTRONIC ARTS)
02 (02) RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 (ROCKSTARS GAME)
03 (04) CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 4 (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD)
04 (08) BATTLEFIELD V (ELECTRONIC ARTS)
05 (10) GRAND THEFT AUTO V (ROCKSTARS GAME)
06 (03) SUPER SMASH BROS. ULTIMATE (NINTENDO)
07 (05) MARVEL'S SPIDER-MAN (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
08 (07) ASSASSIN'S CREED ODYSSEY (UBISOFT)
09 (09) MARIO KART 8 DELUXE (NINTENDO)
10 (06) SUPER MARIO PARTY (NINTENDO)
11 (14) GOD OF WAR (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
12 (11) POKEMON: LET'S GO, PIKACHU! (NINTENDO)
13 (15) CRASH BANDICOOT N.SANE TRILOGY (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD)
14 (12) JUST DANCE 2019 (UBISOFT)
15 (28) THE SIMS 4 (ELECTRONIC ARTS)
16 (16) SPYRO REIGNITED TRILOGY (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD)
17 (13) SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY (NINTENDO)
18 (22) NBA 2K19 (2K SPORTS)
19 (19) THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD (NINTENDO)
20 (26) GRAN TURISMO SPORT (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
21 (17) SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER (SQUARE ENIX)
22 (34) TOM CLANCY'S RAINBOW SIX SIEGE (UBISOFT)
23 (20) POKEMON: LET'S GO, EEVEE! (NINTENDO)
24 (27) THE CREW 2 (UBISOFT)
25 (21) JUST CAUSE 4 (SQUARE ENIX)
26 (18) MINECRAFT: NINTENDO SWITCH EDITION (NINTENDO)
27 (23) SPLATOON 2 (NINTENDO)
28 (29) FAR CRY 5 (UBISOFT)
29 (37) F1 2018 (CODEMASTERS)
30 (109) PACK (ROCKSTARS GAME)
31 (39) 1-2 SWITCH (NINTENDO)
32 (33) DETROID: BECOME HUMAN (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
33 (32) ROCKET LEAGUE (WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE)
34 (36) HITMAN 2 (WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE)
35 (55) MIDDLE EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR (WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE)
36 (31) FALLOUT 76 (BETHESDA SOFTWORKS)
37 (56) MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD (CAPCOM)
38 (25) MINECRAFT: PLAYSTATION 4 EDITION (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
39 (24) FARMING SIMULATOR 19 (FOCUS HOME INTERACTIVE)
40 (40) FORZA HORIZON 4 (MICROSOFT)
41 (47) OVERWATCH (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD)
42 (62) CALL OF DUTY: WWII (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD)
43 (42) THE LAST OF US REMASTERED (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
44 (68) NHL 19 (ELECTRONIC ARTS)
45 (75) RESIDENT EVIL 7: BIOHAZARD (CAPCOM)
46 (50) HORIZON ZERO DAWN (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
47 (44) UNCHARTED 4: A THIEF'S END (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
48 (35) STARLINK: BATTLE FOR ATLAS (UBISOFT)
49 (38) LEGO HARRY POTTER COLLECTION (WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE)
50 (46) ASTRO BOT: RESCUE MISSION (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)

[Xevross]

Making a separate post to explain stuff. That EMEAA chart is one we've had for a while, but from next week's data (week 1 2019) it shall include UK physical data as well. Gfk used to have exclusive rights to UK physical, and now they don't.

"Digital data includes games sold in Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kuwait Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and UAE.

Physical data includes all games, but only those sold in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. UK will be added to the list from week 1 2019."

So yeah, these European + digital data from a few other countries charts are more useful now. We won't get any % changes or numbers from these though, so we'll still have to look to UK only charts for that. The data includes digital from a lot of countries but not physical, so the chart is kind of strange, it'll be nice to look at, but the UK physical + digital is gonna be where its at for useful data.

UK physical chart will still be posted by Gfk like before, but since that data is available to other companies now we also will get physical + digital charts for the UK some point in the week.

[Xevross]

Here are the UK physical charts, with digital to come at some point this week:

01 (02) FIFA 19 (ELECTRONIC ARTS)
02 (01) RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 (TAKE 2)
03 (03) CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 4 (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD)
04 (04) SUPER SMASH BROS. ULTIMATE (NINTENDO)
05 (05) BATTLEFIELD V (ELECTRONIC ARTS)
06 (06) FORZA HORIZON 4 (MICROSOFT)
07 (08) MARIO KART 8 DELUXE (NINTENDO)
08 (09) CRASH BANDICOOT N.SANE TRILOGY (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD)
09 (07) SPYRO REIGNITED TRILOGY (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD)
10 (11) ASSASSIN'S CREED ODYSSEY (UBISOFT)
11 (10) MARVEL'S SPIDER-MAN (SONY COMPUTER ENT.)
12 (16) SUPER MARIO PARTY (NINTENDO)
13 (13) JUST CAUSE 4 (SQUARE ENIX EUROPE)
14 (12) FORTNITE: DEEP FREEZE BUNDLE (WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE)
15 (14) POKEMON: LET'S GO, PIKACHU! (NINTENDO)
16 (17) GRAND THEFT AUTO V (TAKE 2)
17 (15) FALLOUT 76 (BETHESDA SOFTWORKS)
18 (22) THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD (NINTENDO)
19 (18) WWE 2K19 (TAKE 2)
20 (20) LEGO DC SUPER-VILLAINS (WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE)
21 (24) STARLINK: BATTLE FOR ATLAS (UBISOFT)
22 (26) JUST DANCE 2019 (UBISOFT)
23 (23) POKEMON: LET'S GO, EEVEE! (NINTENDO)
24 (19) SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY (NINTENDO)
25 (21) SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER (SQUARE ENIX EUROPE)
26 (31) LEGO HARRY POTTER COLLECTION (WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE)
27 (25) ROCKET LEAGUE: COLLECTORS EDITION (WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE)
28 (30) LEGO THE INCREDIBLES (WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE)
29 (34) LEGO MARVEL SUPER HEROES 2 (WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE)
30 (29) HITMAN 2 (WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE)
31 (28) SPLATOON 2 (NINTENDO)
32 (35) HELLO NEIGHBOR (GEARBOX PUBLISHING)
33 (33) PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS (SONY COMPUTER ENT.)
34 (27) NBA 2K19 (TAKE 2)
35 (39) SONIC MANIA PLUS (SEGA)
36 (38) 1-2 SWITCH (NINTENDO)
37 (RE) LEGO WORLDS (WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE)
38 (RE) PROJECT CARS 2 (BANDAI NAMCO ENTERTAINMENT)
39 (RE) FOOTBALL MANAGER 2019 (SEGA)
40 (RE) TEKKEN 7 (BANDAI NAMCO ENTERTAINMENT)

The most noticeable difference is at the top with FIFA 19 and Red Dead Redemption 2 swapping positions. Red Dead 2 sales fell 64 per cent week-on-week, while FIFA 19's sales fell 62 per cent. That's how close it is at the top.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 retains No.3 with a 71 per cent sales fall, while Super Smash Bros Ultimate is still at No.4 with a 56 per cent sales drop. Battlefield V rounds of the Top Five, just like it did last week.
The sales drops are all due to the end of the Christmas selling period. Overall boxed sales fell 59 per cent week-on-week, but they are broadly in-line with the sales generated during the first week of 2017 (slightly down in units and up in revenue).

[Dr. Pezus]

The reverse brexit!

[Xevross]

UK MONTHLY CHARTS - DECEMBER, 2018

01 (01) RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 (TAKE 2) - 520,000 / 1,757,000
02 (02) FIFA 19 (ELECTRONIC ARTS) - 440,000 / 1,889,000
03 (03) CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 4 (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD) - 340,000 / 1,173,000
04 (NE) SUPER SMASH BROS. ULTIMATE (NINTENDO) - 284,000 / NEW
05 (08) BATTLEFIELD V (ELECTRONIC ARTS) - 212,000 / 313,000
06 (04) SPYRO REIGNITED TRILOGY (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD) - 177,000 / 334,000
07 (RE) MARIO KART 8 DELUXE (NINTENDO) - ? / 800,000
08 (06) FORZA HORIZON 4 (MICROSOFT) - ? / 393,000
09 (RE) CRASH BANDICOOT N.SANE TRILOGY (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD) - ? / 909,000
10 (09) MARVEL'S SPIDER-MAN (SONY COMPUTER ENT.) - ? / 677,000

Lovely numbers!