UK video games sale charts for February 2024

February is almost always a notoriously slow month for gaming. This past February was little exception as the UK saw a decrease of around 5.5% from the previous year in terms of sales, for a total of 2.77 million units sold throughout the country.

However, this February’s decrease in sales isn’t as bad as it sounds when you consider the fact that last February saw the sensationally successful release of Hogwarts Legacy, which went on to become the best-selling video game title of last year.

With that said, there is only one real reason why the difference in sales between the two Februarys isn’t much wider, and that reason is Helldivers 2. The squad-based third-person shooter was far and away the top-selling game this February.

The PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Windows platformed title has enjoyed critical acclaim since its release on February 8 and has even accomplished the rare achievement in gaming of its sales increasing in the weeks following its initial release.

According to the Game Sales Data (GSD), sales of Helldivers 2 rose by close to 115% in its second week of launch and increased again by just over 20% by the end of its third week on sale. The game has enjoyed massive success across both the PS5 and PC platforms, with the PlayStation generating close to 60% of the overall sales and the PC making up the rest.

Not only is this an incredible achievement for a non-established IP, but it is even more impressive when compared with the rest of the month’s new releases. Warner Bros’ Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League and Skull and Bones were the other ‘big’ releases this past February.

Suicide Squad ended the month in the No.4 position, with sales performances being lower than Warner Bros. had hoped for. By the end of its first month on sale, the game was around 20% lower than that of sales on both Gotham Knights and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

Skull and Bones also disappointed and had to settle for the No.8 spot. In its first two weeks of sales, the action-adventure pirate title sold around 75% fewer copies than Sea of Thieves – the last big pirate-themed game released back in 2018.

Some other new releases to enter the charts this February were Persona 3 Reload at No.10, Mario vs Donkey Kong at No.16, and the new survival game Pacific Drift at No.18. Another game that enjoyed substantial and somewhat unsuspected success in February was the monster-taming title, Palworld. However, as the game’s developers aren’t on the GSD’s tracking system, sales numbers for the game have not been recorded.

On the hardware side of things for February, the UK saw approximately 95,855 gaming consoles sold throughout the country. This is a decrease of around 13% compared with the previous month and almost 35% compared to the previous February.

The PlayStation 5 continues to be the top-selling platform by a sizable degree, however, sales on the console are down by 2% compared to last month and almost 30% compared to last February. The Nintendo Switch took the No.2 spot, while the Xbox Series X/S had to settle for third place.

All three console platforms have seen increasing declines so far this year, with many industry experts now predicting there to be some big console-related news to be announced in either late 2024 or early 2025.

With the Nintendo Switch now coming up on seven years on the market, many are expecting some news on the Nintendo Switch 2 to drop shortly, while over at Sony, the upcoming release of the PS5 Pro has already been revealed. We researched a typical console life cycle some time ago, and the seven-years’ time span is an benchmark.

When it came to gaming accessory sales this past February, in the region of 610,000 add-on products were purchased by UK gamers. Just like console and game sales, this is also a decrease of just over 10% compared to January but is actually an increase of just over 15% compared with February 2023.

The PS5 DualSense white controller continues to lead the market once more, with the Xbox Robot White Wireless controller following close behind. The last week of February also saw a strong launch for the Sony Pulse Elite Premium Headset. That’s pretty much everything for the UK gaming chart news for February 2024. Stay tuned here for all the latest gaming news as soon as it drops.