Top 10 best-selling video games in the UK in Year 2019

Physical sales of games in the UK has dropped by 19.8 percent year-on-year. GfK reported that retailers sold 17.6 million boxed games, generating £602.5 million in revenue, which represents a year-on-year drop of 21.7 percent.

In digital game sales the UK did see some growth, rising by 1.1 percent year-on-year to £3.17 billion. This data was provided by IHS estimates and compiled by the Entertainment Retailers Association.

These figures mean that the combined digital and physical game sales in the UK for 2019 were down by 3.4 percent year-on-year at £3.77 billion. This is the first drop in software sales that the market has experienced since 2012.

The drop in revenue isn’t a surprise to analysts since 2019 was the final full-year of the current console cycle, with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on the horizon. 2012 saw a similar trend since it was the year before the arrival of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

2019 also saw few large releases in comparison to other recent years, with six of the top ten best selling games for the year being released in 2019, and the rest being released in 2018. Kim Bayley, CEO of the Entertainment Retailers Association explained that the market needs the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and it needs them sooner rather than later.

The best selling game at retail in 2019 was FIFA 20, with 1.5 million copies sold, which is actually quite a drop compared to FIFA 19 which sold 1.9 million copies during the same period year-on-year.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was the second best selling game of 2019 with 1.192 million copies sold at retail, showing some growth against Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 which sold 1.172 million copies in the same period last year. It’s also worth considering that Black Ops 4 went on sale earlier in the year in 2018 compared to Modern Warfare’s release date.

Every other best selling game for 2019 failed to reach the 1 million copies sold mark, with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe selling a total of 465,062 copies for the year, placing third. The game actually sold 7,000 more copies in 2019 than it did in 2018.

In fourth place for the year is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order with 438,465 copies sold in 2019. The game sold better than EA’s equivalent release for 2018, Battlefield 5, which sold 313,100 over the same period in 2018.

Red Dead Redemption 2, the second best selling game of 2018, is the fifth best selling game of 2019 with 306,392 copies sold this year. The game would have slipped to sixth place if the sales for Pokemon Sword and Shield were combined, resulting in 430,000 total copies sold in 2019. As it is, Pokemon Sword sits in seventh place in the chart with 273,991 copies sold in 2019.

The only other game of note in the chart is Grand Theft Auto 5, which sits in ninth place in the chart six years after its original release date. The game sold 247,357 copies in 2019.

The top ten best selling games at retail in the UK for 2019 are as follows.