Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is the Final No.1 of 2019

For the third consecutive week now Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is the best selling game in the UK in terms of boxed sales. This makes it the final number one as 2019 closes out.

The rest of the top five best selling games also haven’t changed week-on-week, with FIFA 20 in second, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order in third, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Edition in fourth, and Luigi’s Mansion in fifth.

With this being the final chart for 2019, it’s now possible to directly compare physical game sales for the past year. It’s obvious now that physical game sales have dropped year-on-year by 20 percent. This also marks the end of the official top 40 UK charts, since a new supplier will be taking over for 2020.

Up until now GfK has been supplying the weekly sales charts for the UK, though they’ve come under heavy criticism because they only report on physical sales data. The reason for this is that only retailers share their software sales data with GfK, while digital storefronts like Steam, Xbox Live, and the PlayStation Store don’t.

As a result, the European trade body ISFE, named GSD, has started a new chart that tracks both physical and digital sales data. Physical sales are reported directly by retailers, and cover every single game sale that accounts for a game in a box. Digital sales come directly from publishers, though not every single publisher is part of the chart, with Nintendo and Bethesda being two of note.

As a result of the change in supplier, and the complexity of compiling digital sales data, the weekly and monthly charts are going to take longer to put together in 2020. Due to the differences in available data, UKIE will be compiling a separate physical sales chart separately from the digital charts.

A more extended list of top sellers can be found here.