European game sales down just 1.6% during the first half of 2024 | European Monthly Charts
Just under 80 million PC and console games have been sold across Europe for the first six months of 2024, GSD data reveals.
That's a unit sales drop of 1.6% over the start of 2023, which is a strong result considering the comparatively weaker release slate for the first half of this year compared with the year before. The first half of 2023 saw major releases including Hogwarts Legacy, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Diablo IV and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
By comparison, just two games in the Top Ten best-selling 2024 games (so far) have been released in 2024. Helldivers 2 (at No.2) and The Last of Us: Part 2 Remastered (at No.10).
Note: Palworld data is missing, which would likely have been a key seller, too.
Many of these games had a lower selling price compared with the AAA releases of last years, so revenue will have been down more severel. Looking at the UK market in particular, ERA says that games revenue was down 30% over the first half of the year.
In terms of European game sales in June, 11.3 million video games were sold last month, which is a drop of 19%. June last year was a particularly big one for video games, with major releases including Diablo 4 and Final Fantasy 16. There wasn't a major standalone release this year.
One positive comparison with June last year comes in the form of the football game. EA Sports FC24 was No.1 in June, with sales 7% higher than what FIFA 24 managed during the comparable period. This year's game will have benefitted from the European Championships, which took place in Germany throughout June and July.
Jumping up to second place was Elden Ring, which enjoyed a huge sales increase on the back of its new DLC: Shadow of the Erdtree. Month-on-month, the base game's sales leapt 454%.
The highest charting new game was Luigi's Mansion 2 HD (only physical sales counted, no digital). The game very narrowly misses out on being the fastest selling Nintendo Switch game this year by just 4,000 units. It was beaten by Paper Mario:
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