UK Gaming Scene Sees EA Sports College Football 25 Make a Strong Debut

The UK witnessed a relatively quiet July in terms of new video game releases, with EA Sports College Football 25 making the highest new entry at number 7. Despite American football's niche popularity in the UK, the game has gotten off to a robust start, with sales more than doubling those of Madden NFL 24 over its first two weeks last year. EA Sports FC 24 claimed the top spot in July, which is unsurprising given the European Football championships that took place earlier in the month. Notably, EA Sports FC 24 sold 46% more copies than FIFA 23 did during the same period the previous year. Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn jumped up the charts to number 6 following the release of its new expansion, Dawntrail, on July 2nd. Overall, PC and console game sales dipped 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 dearth of major game releases. In the console market, PlayStation maintains its lead in the UK. Console sales dropped 22% month-on-month to just over 77,000 units, also representing a 30% decline over the same period in 2023. The PS5 remains the top-selling console despite a 31% sales drop, while the Switch rose to second place after a 9% sales slip, and the Xbox Series S and X fell to third after a 19% sales decline. A notable milestone was reached when the PS5 hit four million sales in the UK, 31 weeks behind the PS4's pace, making it the fifth fastest-selling console in the UK. Over 540,000 accessories were sold across the UK in July, a 17% drop from June but only a 4% decline from the same month last year. In terms of revenue, the PlayStation Portal is the best-selling device, followed by the White DualSense controller. The Portal has consistently been either the number one or two best-selling gaming accessory by revenue in the UK since its launch in November 2023, according to GfK's games lead, Dorian Bloch. Bloch noted that the only time it was outside the top two was in January due to stock issues. Digital data was not available for this report.