Old games, FIFA and Switch dominated Europe in 2021 | European Market Report
Christopher Dring
Head of Games B2B
Thursday 27th January 2022
Interactive Software Federation of Europe
Over 170 million games, seven million games consoles and 19 million accessories were sold across Europe, according to the latest data from GSD.
The 170 million games, which covers physical and digital games, is a drop of 9.5% the year before (data includes all retail games and digital games sold by most major AAA publishers, see full list below).
2020 was a notable year due to the COVID-19 lockdowns boosting software sales. If we compare the data to 2019 instead, the software market is up 12.3%. It also should be noted that there were 53 tracked weeks in 2020, vs 52 weeks in 2021.
FIFA 22 was the biggest video game across Europe last year, selling almost double second place. EA's hit football game is 17% up over the previous year's title, FIFA 21 (for the comparable period).
Remarkably, the ageing Grand Theft Auto 5 was the second biggest game of 2021, although sales are down just under 20% compared with 2020. Expect the title to stick around in the 2022 charts, especially with PS5 and Xbox Series X and S versions due to launch this year.
After FIFA 22, the best-selling new release of the year was Call of Duty: Vanguard at No.4, which is 34% down over the previous year's Call of Duty.
Mario Kart 8: Deluxe is at No.5 last year, which is up five places over 2020, but sales are down slightly by 9%, which reflects a slight dip in Nintendo Switch sales year-on-year.
2020 had bigger new releases than in 2021. Big sellers in 2020, outside of FIFA and Call of Duty, included Animal Crossing: New Horizons and The Last of Us: Part 2. In 2021, the only other new release in the Top Ten (after FIFA and Call of Duty) was Super Mario 3D World
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