Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo console sales jumped 44% in September | UK Monthly Charts

3.5 million video games were sold across the UK last month, a slight rise of nearly 1% over the year before (GSD data).

The best-selling game by a country mile was EA Sports FC 24. It’s a strong launch for the game, with sales only down 8% over last year’s FIFA 23. It was expected that there would be some decline due to the rebranding, plus the fact last year’s FIFA launch was particularly strong. EA’s dominance of the football game genre looks set to continue even without the FIFA IP.

The second best-selling game of the month belongs to Xbox’s Starfield. After four weeks the game is narrowly behind Forza Horizon 5’s launch in terms of sales, which remains the fastest-selling first-party Xbox game this generation (note: Forza Horizon 5 was also available on Xbox One). Of course, both games were available upon release in the subscription service Game Pass, so the true scale of their success is not purely about how many copies it sold. Two-thirds of the Starfield’s unit sales were on PC.

There’s another new game at No.3 in the form of Mortal Kombat 1. The Warner Bros game’s first three weeks on sale are down 24% compared with the opening of Mortal Kombat 11. Mortal Kombat has an audience in the UK, but the title’s popularity is typically much stronger in North America.

In fourth place is another new game in NBA 2K24. The 2K Games sports title didn’t do as well as last year’s version, with sales down 26% year-on-year. Again, NBA is a title that focuses on the US market.

There are two other new games in the charts. Plaion’s Payday 3 makes No.6. It looks like a steady launch for the game, although the data doesn’t go back far enough to compare to 2013’s Payday 2.

And finally The Crew Motorfest crosses the finishing line at No.9. The Ubisoft racer also had a weaker launch than its predecessor. For the first three weeks, unit sales are down 30% compared with the launch of The Crew 2, which launched in June 2018.

Console hardware continues to deliver

Game console sales jumped 44% in the UK during September (compared with August), driven by strong sales of all consoles and particularly the Xbox Series S and X (GfK panel data).

The Xbox platforms benefitted from the release of Starfield, with sales up 136% month-on-month. The Series X SKU was narrowly the most popular version last month, ahead of the Series S 512GB edition by just 100 units. The new 1TB Series S console was the third best-selling Xbox SKU.

Xbox Series S and X was the second most popular platform behind PlayStation 5, which also enjoyed a good month with sales up 24% over August.

Nintendo Switch fell to third position in September, but it was still a decent month for Nintendo’s ageing platform, with sales up 18% over August.

In terms of accessories, 663,208 add-on products were sold in the UK last month, which is up 17.3% over August, but down 11.6% over September last year (GfK panel data).

The DualSense White retains its place as the UK’s best-selling accessory. Strong sales of Xbox consoles has resulted in strong sales of Xbox controllers, with the Black Xbox Wireless Controller up five places to No.2, the White variant up five places to No.4, and the Pulse Red edition up six places to No.5. In total, there are six Xbox controllers in the Top Ten best-selling accessories for September.

UK GSD September 2023 Top 10 (Digital + Physical)

* Digital data unavailable

GSD digital data includes games from participating companies sold via PC digital stores, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo Eshop. Major participating companies are Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Embracer Group (including Gearbox, Koch Media, Sabre Interactive), Focus Entertainment, Kepler, Konami, Marvellous Games, Microids, Microsoft (including Bethesda), Milestone, Nacon, Paradox Interactive, Quantic Dream, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Take-Two, Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Nintendo and 505 Games are the notable absentees, alongside smaller studios.