Friday, November 15, 2024

EA Sports FC 25, Space Marine 2, Astro Bot and PS5 impress in bumper September | UK Monthly Charts

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3.88 million PC and console games were sold in the UK across September, a rise of 8% over 2025.

This is based on GSD data supplied to GamesIndustry.biz.

The jump in game sales is the result of six new titles in the Top Ten.

The No.1 game was, unsurprisingly, EA Sports FC 25. The new football game saw launch sales drop 4.6% over last year’s title. Although the game’s sales are slightly lower than last year, the game’s premium early access edition actually performed better year-on-year.

EA Sports FC was the runaway winner, but that shouldn’t take away from a phenomenal performance of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 at No.2 in the charts.

The Saber Interactive and Pullup Entertainment title is already the third best-selling new game released this year, behind the aforementioned EA Sports FC 25 and February’s Helldivers 2.

The third biggest game of the month is The Crew 2 from Ubisoft. The 2018 racing title was discounted to under £1, which was just to cover the game’s platform fee, which caused a huge surge in sales.

At No.4 in the charts is Star Wars Outlaws. It was a disappointing start for Ubisoft’s game, and is now tracking (slightly) behind the launch of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, which was developed by the same studio and released back in December 2023. Ubisoft is now actively pushing Star Wars over the Q4 sales window.

And rounding off the Top Five is Astro Bot from PlayStation. It’s a strong start for Sony’s platformer. The game’s first four weeks of sales are up 24% compared with 2021’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, which was the previous PS5-only game aimed at a broader gaming audience.

Other new games in September include NBA 2K25, which is tracking 14% behind last year’s NBA title. And just making the Top Ten was The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. After one week, the 2D Zelda game posted sales 14% below that of 2019’s Link’s Awakening remake (which was made in the same art style). However, this is purely physical sales, and so the real figures may be a lot closer between the two when downloading is taken into account.

Big month for PS5 Digital console

Over 126,000 games consoles were sold in the UK last month, which is 35% down on September 2023, NielsenIQ/GfK data shows.PS5 was comfortably the top-selling console once again, well ahead of second place Xbox Series S and X. Nintendo Switch is No.3 again, and has now slipped to No.3 for the year.

It was a big month for the PS5 All-Digital console, which had its second best month so far (its previous best was December 2023).

As we head into the fourth quarter, console sales this year are down 32% over 2023.Over in accessories, over 743,000 products were sold at UK retail, which is 11% up over September last year.The No.1 accessory this month was the Midnight Black DualSense controller, which means the White variety has dropped to No.2. New at No.10 is the DualSense Astro Bot limited edition controller.

Making a first-time appearance is the PS5 Disc Drive, which is at No21 by units, but No 8 by revenue. This will be driven by the success of the PS5 All-Digital console last month, plus increased stock levels for the standalone Disc Drive.

Meanwhile, the Playstation Portal Remote Player continues to be a highlight as the No.1 accessory by revenue (No.8 by volume) for the first nine months of 2024. So far this year it has been the No.1 or No.2 accessory by revenue in each month, NielsenQ/GFK reports. The only exception was in January when stock levels were very low.

UK GSD September 2024 Top 10 (Digital and Physical)

Position Title
1 EA Sports FC 25 (EA)
2 Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 (Pullup Entertainment)
3 The Crew 2 (Ubisoft)
4 Star Wars Outlaws (Ubisoft)
5 Astro Bot (Sony)
6 Hogwarts Legacy (Warner Bros)
7 Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
8 NBA 2K25 (2K Games)
9 Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Deep Silver)
10 The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Nintendo)*

*Digital data unavailable

GSD digital data includes games from participating companies sold via PC digital stores, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo Eshop. Major participating companies are Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Capcom, CD Projekt, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Embracer Group (including Gearbox, Koch Media, Sabre Interactive), Focus Entertainment, Kepler, Konami, Marvellous Games, Microids, Microsoft (including Bethesda), Milestone, Nacon, Paradox Interactive, Quantic Dream, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Take-Two, Tencent, Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Nintendo and 505 Games are the notable absentees, alongside smaller studios.

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