Christopher Dring Head of Games B2B Sunday 2nd December 2018 Share this article Share

Companies in this article UKIE

FIFA 19, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 continue to perform strongly post-Black Friday.

Although sales took a tumble over Black Friday, over one million physical games were sold in the UK last week generating £32.6 million.

FIFA 19 retains No.1, with a 39 per cent drop in sales week-on-week. Red Dead Redemption 2 rises to No.2 (sales down 24 per cent), swapping place with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 at No.3 (down 64 per cent).

Meanwhile, Battlefield V holds on at No.4, despite a 48 per cent fall in sales. It's actually quite a minor drop in sales for a big AAA shooter, although the game continues to perform well below what's typical for the franchise. Note: Sales in this data only include physical games sold.

The new game of the week is Darksiders III, which debuts at No.32. The game has sold 84 per cent less than the last Darksiders II, and more than 70 per cent below the original title. Those games were released in 2010 and 2012, where the digital market was significantly smaller (again, download sales are not counted).

Darksiders III debuts a place above Hitman 2, which returns to the Top 40 after dropping out of the charts entirely last week.

It's been a difficult year for some games, but not all, as there have been a few exceptional performers this Christmas - particularly exclusive games.

Forza Horizon 4 on Xbox One is at No.5, and is one of the standout performers of the season. It's been out nine weeks, and sales are 18 per cent up compared with the first nine weeks of Forza Horizon 3 (released in 2016).

Spider-Man is another standout. The game is the fastest-selling PS4 game ever released and is on course to overtake Uncharted 4 as the best-selling PS4 exclusive this generation (UK sales).

Meanwhile, the Pokémon Let's Go games for Nintendo Switch continue to perform very strongly. Although not technically 'mainline' games in the franchise, they are the first major Pokémon titles for Nintendo's new platform. When they launched three weeks ago, the combined sales were five per cent down compared with the opening week sales of the first Pokémon games on 3DS (X and Y). Three weeks in, and Let's Go is now tracking eight per cent ahead of X and Y. Note: Pokémon X and Y was released a year later in the 3DS' lifecycle, so the install base was higher.

The Pikachu Edition of Let's Go is comfortably the best-selling of the two, with the Eevee version tracking 45 per cent behind.

Here is the UKIE/GfK Physical Retail Top 10 for the week ending December 1st