Game sales dip but PS5 drives console market up 60% | European Monthly Charts

gamesindustry.biz:

Europe posted a solid month for video game sales during November, driven by Call of Duty, EA Sports FC 24 and PS5.

24.6 million video games were sold across tracked European markets, a rise of 20% over the year before. However, this is because November 2023 was a 'five week' month compared with the four weeks of November 2022. If we just look at the same four week period, sales were actually down slightly by 2%.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the big driver of sales. It was the only real new release of note for the month, and made up for the absence of other AAA titles (last year saw the release of God of War Ragnarök and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet). Last year's Call of Duty (Modern Warfare 2) launched in October, so it was a significantly bigger November for COD this year than last year.

However, for its first four weeks, Modern Warfare 3's sales were 33% down compared with Modern Warfare 2. This year's title was similar to last year's release, which may have impacted interest. It was still comfortably the best-selling game of the month.

Elsewhere, EA Sports FC 24 sold 3% additional units over November compared with FIFA 23 (for the same five-week period). The game was discounted heavily over the Black Friday period.

Sticking with football, the second biggest new game of the month was Football Manager 2024, which sits at No.10. The game narrowly sold a little less than last year's title for its first four weeks on sale.

The other new game in the chart is Super Mario RPG on Switch, which makes No.13. Nintendo doesn't share digital data, so it may have charted higher if download figures were available.

For its first three weeks on sale, the SNES remake sold 13% fewer units than 2020's Paper Mario: The Origami