Best-selling video games in the UK in July 2023

In a somewhat surprising turn of events, both the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, released in 2009 and 2012 respectively, became two of the UK’s most popular video games for the month of July.

On Xbox, both titles underwent matchmaking fixes and reworking, while also being discounted in the ‘Xbox Ultimate Game Sale’ at £12.49 for MW2 and £11.99 for Black Ops 2. This has led to Black Ops 2 taking the No.4 spot and Modern Warfare 2 reaching the No.5 position.

Last month, the UK charts were completely turned on their head thanks to both PlayStation and Xbox’s major digital summer sales. Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto 5 were also reinserted into the top 5 as a result, after the two Rockstar games were heavily discounted on all Xbox and PlayStation consoles.

However, even with the impact of the ‘Ultimate Game Sale’ on the charts, it wasn’t enough to stop FIFA 23 from taking the No.1 spot for July. During the last month, an estimated 2.35 million AAA titles were sold through the UK. This is roughly a 30% increase from this time last year and includes both psychical and digital copies, according to the figures from the Game Sale Data (GSD).

Over 1.6 million games were purchased through digital downloads, which is an increase of 40% from July 2022. More than 700,000 games were bought from physical retail outlets, which is also an increase from last year, of around 12%.

Even though Hogwarts Legacy is technically the best-selling game so far this year, it only came in at No. 6 in this month’s charts. As far as actual new releases to enter the charts in July, you have to go all the way down to No. 23 to find the entry, which was Pikmin 4 on the Nintendo Switch. Based on physical sales figures alone, Pikmin 4 was the 5th highest-selling game in July, but as Nintendo doesn’t usually publish digital sales, it fell much further down the list.

Moving over to hardware and consoles, sales figures in the UK for July have dropped by just over 5% in the past month. However, when comparing these figures with this time last year, sales have actually increased by more than 5%.

With sales continuing to be driven by a cheaper price of its digital version, exclusive games, and a superior controller, the PlayStation 5 remains the leading market platform. This trend looks to continue, with the PS5 selling more units in July than it did the month previous, which now gives the Sony console an overall increase of 68% since July 2022.

The Nintendo Switch has enjoyed the same success of late, with sales figures continuing to drop from June to July by 15%. Overall, sales of the Nintendo Switch console have decreased by more than 8% so far this year, compared to those from the same period in 2022.

The Xbox Series X/S finished the month of July in the 3rd position. Sales on the Microsoft console have dropped by more than 10% since June. Overall, console sales for Xbox are down by almost 23% in the UK so far this year. Compare this with the success of PlayStation hardware sales, which are currently up over 300%.

In gaming accessories, roughly 550,000 items were sold throughout the UK for July. This is a decrease of 3% from June and 3% from July 2022. So far this year, the Sony DualSense controller has dominated the accessory charts.

The No.1 accessory sold was the White edition of the controller, followed by the Black version. The Starlight Blue controller jumped more than a dozen places to the No.18 spot, while the Grey Camo version also moved up five spots into the No.5 position. Also jumping nearly a dozen spots was the Cosmic Red edition, which came in at No.20.

The impressive sales figures of the PS5 last month no doubt also greatly aided controller sales. With August now almost halfway over, it will be interesting to see if PlayStation can maintain these big sales advantages leading up to Christmas.