Digital Distribution Dominates Game Market in UK in 2020
The past year on the UK game market belonged to digital distribution. The best-selling title was FIFA 21, while the best-selling console was the Nintendo Switch.
- Digital sales exceed boxed,
- Best-selling game: FIFA 21,
- Best-selling console: Nintendo Switch,
- PS5 sales better than PS4.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in the year of its release.
In total, 42.7 million copies of games were sold in the UK market last year (34% more than in 2019). From that number, 24.5 million were digital copies. This method of distribution has a growing share of the UK market. The trend has been observed for a long time, but was accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic. However, that's not to say that boxed editions have done poorly. Their sales are up 2% compared to 2019. Digital distribution is simply growing faster.
Best-selling games of 2020 in the UK market
Digital and boxed distribution combined
GamesIndustry.biz's report only included detailed sales figures for a handful of games, but Pranay has released figures for the top ten, obtaining them directly from the GDS database.
# |
Game: |
UK sales results: |
1 |
FIFA 21 (EA) |
2.18 million |
2 |
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (Activision Blizzard) |
1.42 million |
3 |
Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar) |
1.12 million |
4 |
FIFA 20 (EA) |
903 thousand. |
5 |
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Activision Blizzard) |
897 thousand. |
6 |
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo) |
810k. |
7 |
Assassin's Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft) |
665k. |
8 |
The Last of Us Part 2 (Sony) |
539 thousand. |
9 |
NBA 2K20 (2K Games) |
481k. |
10 |
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege (Ubisoft) |
436 thousand. |
11 |
Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar) |
no data available |
12 |
Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo) |
data not available |
13 |
Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Sony) |
data not available |
14 |
Monopoly Plus (Ubisoft) |
data not available |
15 |
Marvel's Avengers (Square Enix) |
data not available |
16 |
Ghost of Tsushima (Sony) |
data not available |
17 |
Cyberpunk 2077 (Bandai Namco/CD Projekt) |
data not available |
18 |
Assassin's Creed Odyssey (Ubisoft) |
data not available |
19 |
Minecraft (Microsoft) |
data not available |
20 |
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (EA) |
no data available |
It is worth mentioning that in the case of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Mario Kart 8: Deluxe and Cyberpunk 2077 only boxed distribution was taken into , as GDS was unable to obtain digital results for these titles. When included, the spots taken by these game would have certainly been higher.
Digital distribution only
# |
Game: |
1 |
FIFA 21 (EA) |
2 |
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (Activision Blizzard) |
3 |
Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar) |
4 |
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare(Activision Blizzard) |
5 |
FIFA 20 (EA) |
6 |
NBA 2K20 (2K Games) |
7 |
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege (Ubisoft) |
8 |
Monopoly Plus (Ubisoft) |
9 |
Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar) |
10 |
Assassin's Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft) |
Boxed Distribution Only
# |
Game: |
1 |
FIFA 21 (EA) |
2 |
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo) |
3 |
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (Activision Blizzard) |
4 |
Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo) |
5 |
Assassin's Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft) |
6 |
Cyberpunk 2077 (Bandai Namco/CD Projekt) |
7 |
The Last of Us: Part 2 (Sony) |
8 |
FIFA 20 (EA) |
9 |
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Activision Blizzard) |
10 |
Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar) |
Nintendo Switch as the best-selling console
Gamers bought a total of 3.16 million consoles in the UK market in 2020, 29.4% more than in 2019. The leader in of sales was the Nintendo Switch. Interestingly, the PlayStation 5 came in second place. Despite the recent November launch and availability issues, the PS5 found more buyers than the PS4, which took third place.
