EA Sports FC 24 and GTA 5 top European charts in tough May | European Monthly Charts
11.6 million PC and console games were sold across European markets in May. Compared with the same five week period in 2023, that's a drop of nearly 17%.
This is GSD figures, which tracks all digital game sales from most major publishers (Nintendo data is absent), and physical game sales in all major European markets.
The main reason for the drop is that last year we had the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which was a major hit. To put it into context, Zelda alone sold more copies in May 2023 than the entire Top Ten sold in May 2024. Last year also saw the release of Hogwarts Legacy on PS4 and Xbox One, which was also a strong performer.
The No.1 selling game in May this year was EA Sports FC 24, followed by Grand Theft Auto 5. F1 2024 races in at No.3, which launches a good two weeks earlier this year. However, the Codemasters game has got off to a slow start, with launch sales down 35% over last year's game.
The PC release of Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut sends the PlayStation game up to No.4. Meanwhile, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door comes in at No.5. Nintendo does not share digital sales with the charts, so the game may have charted higher in reality.
Looking at similar games, the new Paper Mario's sales are down 8% compared with the opening two weeks of last year's Super Mario RPG, and 8.5% lower than 2020's Paper Mario: The Origami King.
The only other new game in the Top 100 was Homeworld 3 (No.76).
Finally, Star Wars-related pricing activity had sent Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order back into the Top Ten.
Console sales fall sharply on tough Switch comparisons
Across the tracked markets, 311,000 games consoles were sold in May 2023, which is a drop of 40% over the same period the year before.
All console platforms saw a big drop, with Nintendo Switch suffering the biggest fall. Again, this is because last May saw the release of Zelda and a special Zelda edition of the OLED Switch model.
Meanwhile, accessory sales fell 25% for the same
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