PS4 took half of all UK physical game sales in 2017 First year on record where a single console has accounted for more than 50% of the market

James Batchelor UK Editor Tuesday 19th December 2017 Share this article Share

2017 was an incredible year for the PlayStation 4 in the UK, with Sony's console accounting for one out of every two games sold at retail.

Data provided to GamesIndustry.biz by UKIE and GfK Chart-Track shows that PS4 represented 50.2% of all physical software sales over the course of the year. The nearest competitor was Xbox One, which accounted for 31.6% of all games sold.

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The full rankings of consoles by share of software sales will be revealed in our 2017 Year In Numbers infographic later this week.

UKIE notes that 2017 is the first year on record when a single platform has accounted for more than half of the total games market in terms of units. The previous best was the original PlayStation, which accounted for 47.9% of all boxed game sales in 1998.

Also notable is that Sony formats will have the most exclusive titles at No.1 in the UK charts this year. The most obvious is Activision's PS4-exclusive Crash Bandicoot: N Sane Trilogy, which racked up seven weeks in the top spot over the summer. This was not seven weeks consecutively: Crash was dethroned for one week by Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, another PS4 exclusive.

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Sony's other 2017 chart-toppers include Horizon Zero Dawn, which managed two weeks (although not consecutively), as well as Persona 5 (exclusive to PS4/PS3), WipeOut: Omega Collection, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and Gran Turismo: Sport (all of which spent one week at No.1).

That's 15 weeks with a PlayStation title at No.1 in the UK - a feat not seen since 2009 when Nintendo racked up 16 weeks at the top of the charts, mostly with the original Wii Fit.

These figures only encompass physical sales within the UK, so it's possible things may look a little different if digital was taken into account. Hopefully, the new combined physical/digital chart will remedy that in future years.