UK physical and digital charts: week ending January 4, 2020

An updated GSD chart demonstrates how different the UK sales chart looks with digital sales data taken into account.

GSD was established by the European trade body ISFE and operated by B2Boost. They released their first official UK chart last week, which showed that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare beat Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order for the UK number one in boxed sales.

However, GSD is also producing a digital sales data chart, which takes data from publishers directly and releases later in the week. Publishers whose information is used in the chart include Capcom, Bandai Namco, Codemasters, Activision Blizzard, Koch Media, EA, Focus Home Interactive, Sega, Paradox, Microsoft, Milestone, Ubisoft, Take-Two, Square Enix, Sony, and Warner Bros.

While this data doesn’t cover the entire market, it does provide a more accurate picture of overall game sales. The most notable publisher missing from the list above is Nintendo, who still won’t share their digital sales data.

The first digital chart for the UK from GSD has now been released. This isn’t a totally accurate picture of UK game sales, but it does show how different the chart looks with digital data taken into account alongside retail sales.

The digital chart puts Grand Theft Auto 5 at the top, and sees games like Rainbow Six Siege, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Monopoly Plus, and Marvel’s Spider-Man enter the top ten. The physical chart, on the other hand, puts Call of Duty: Modern Warfare at the top, which would still be the same with digital and physical sales combined.

However, combining sales date would also push Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order down the chart to fourth, move Grand Theft Auto 5 into second place, and puts FIFA 20 in third. Borderlands 3 saw a great week for physical sales, but would be dragged out of the top ten combined chart by a lack of digital sales.

The top ten best selling games in terms of physical sales in the UK last week were as follows.