UK December Gaming Charts: FIFA 23, Call of Duty, and God of War Ragnarok Lead the Way

The UK gaming market saw the sale of nearly 6.4 million video games in December, marking a decline of almost 8% compared to the previous year. Digital downloads accounted for 2.85 million units, while physical sales totaled over 3.5 million copies. According to the latest data from GSD, FIFA 23 emerged as the top-selling game of the month, closely followed by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Notably, the sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 were relatively evenly split between PlayStation and Xbox platforms, with 54% of sales attributed to PlayStation and 46% to Xbox. God of War Ragnarok secured the third spot, although it's worth noting that if the sales of Pokémon Violet and Scarlet were combined, they would have taken the third position. Several new titles were released in December, but none managed to break into the top ten. EA's Need for Speed: Unbound debuted at 14th place, with launch sales 44% lower than those of Need for Speed: Heat in 2019. The Callisto Protocol ranked 16th, although digital sales data for this title is not available. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion made its debut at 20th place. GfK hardware figures showed that over 460,000 gaming consoles were sold in December 2022, representing a 24% increase from November but a 17% decline compared to December 2021. PS5 console sales saw a marginal increase compared to the previous year, while sales of Xbox Series S and X, as well as Nintendo Switch, experienced a decline. Nintendo narrowly took the top spot in console sales during the Christmas period, ahead of PS5 in second place. In the accessories market, 1.85 million add-on products were sold in December, a 44% rise from November but an 11% decline from the previous year. Controllers led the market, with the PS5 DualSense controller taking the top spot. The GSD digital data encompasses games from participating companies sold through Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Nintendo Eshop. Key participating companies include Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Capcom, and many others, with notable exceptions being Nintendo and 505 Games, along with smaller studios.