Best-selling video games in Europe in December 2023

In December, Europe saw over 26 million video games sold throughout the region across PC and console platforms. This is a slight increase of around 3% when measured with the figures from the previous year and highlights another successful year for the gaming industry.

It comes as no surprise that EA Sports FC 24 was the No.1 game across Europe in December. The popular football sim – formally known as FIFA – has ended the year as the No.1 video game in Europe for the majority of the past decade. With that being said though, compared to FIFA 23, total sales of the title dropped by almost 12% this year, but this had been attributed to the franchise rebrand and that 2022 was a World Cup year.

The game that ended the year in the No.2 spot in Europe was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. This is also not much of a surprise, as even though MW3 was met with a large amount of criticism from fans and critics, it has always been a hugely successful game in terms of sales in Europe, and 2023 was no different.

The popular first-person shooter franchise developed by Activision Blizzard managed to edge out the Hogwarts Legacy to the second-place position, despite the Harry Potter title enjoying critical success and finishing in the No.2 spot in countries such as the UK.

It seems that 2023 was a great year for long-established franchises, as Super Mario Bros Wonder was another title that ended the year in the top 5. Even though sales of the game dipped somewhat in December, since its release in October the Nintendo Switch exclusive has been the biggest selling title for the platform.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, was the other new IP to enter the top 10, alongside Hogwarts Legacy. The open-world adventure game, based on the Avatar film series, ended December at No.6. However, as the game was only released in December, its overall sales success will remain to be seen in 2024.

All the other titles occupying the rest of the top 10 were also pre-existing franchises such as GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2, Spider Man 2, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and Mario Kart 8: Deluxe. This shows that despite the financial success of gaming in 2023, the industry itself is overall sorely lacking in creative new ideas and fresh titles.

In terms of console sales for December, over 1.25 million units were reported to be sold throughout the tracked European markets. Overall, this is an increase of over 15% when compared with the figures from December 2022.

With a sales growth of over 65% from last year, the majority of this came from sales of the PlayStation 5. This was the only console to enjoy an increase in sales in 2023, as sales on both the Nintendo Switch – which took the No.2 spot – and the Xbox Series X/S are down 7% and 19% respectively.

Lastly, sales of accessories and add-ons also enjoyed a particularly successful year, with over 3.5 million items being purchased in December across tracked European markets. This is an increase of just over 10% compared to December 2022, proving once again that gaming accessories are a highly lucrative market for gaming companies.