UK Gaming Market Sees Impressive Debut of EA Sports College Football 25

The UK gaming scene experienced a relatively calm July, with EA Sports College Football 25 being the highest new entry at number 7 in the charts. Despite American football's niche popularity in the UK, the game has made a strong start, with sales more than doubling those of Madden NFL 24 in its first two weeks last year. EA Sports FC 24 took the top spot in July, which is unsurprising given the European Football championships that took place earlier in the month, with England reaching the final. Notably, EA Sports FC 24 sold 46% more copies in July compared to FIFA 23 during the same period last year. Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn jumped to number 6 following the release of its new expansion, Dawntrail, on July 2nd. Overall, PC and console game sales declined by 2.9% compared to July last year, with 2.35 million games sold in the UK. The top six games were all released prior to 2024, highlighting the recent lack of major game releases. PlayStation maintains its dominance in the UK console market, with console sales dropping 22% month-on-month to just over 77,000 units sold. The PS5 remains the top-selling console, despite a 31% sales decline, while the Switch rises to second place after a 9% sales slip, and the Xbox Series S and X falls to third after a 19% sales tumble. A notable milestone was reached in July, with the PS5 hitting four million sales in the UK, 31 weeks behind the PS4, making it the fifth fastest-selling console in the UK. In the accessories market, over 540,000 products were sold in the UK in July, a 17% drop from June but only a 4% decline from the same month last year. The PlayStation Portal is the top-selling device in terms of revenue, followed by the White DualSense controller. According to GfK's games lead, Dorian Bloch, the Sony PlayStation Portal Remote Player has consistently been the number one or two best-selling gaming accessory by revenue in the UK since its launch in November 2023, except for January this year when it was outside the top two due to stock issues. Digital data is currently unavailable. The GSD digital data includes games from participating companies sold via PC digital stores, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Nintendo Eshop, with major participating companies including Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, and Electronic Arts, among others.