UK Games Sales Figure for March 26% Higher than Last Year

Thanks to data from GamesIndustry.biz, we can see that there were over 25% more videogames sold in March of this year compared to 2023- which is a substantial increase. During the month, 3.65 million games were sold across digital and physical storefronts in comparison to last March’s roughly 2.9 million. There are a lot of factors that played into this increase- but the biggest contributor is, of course, the plethora of big games that released during this 30-day period.

Image by Arrowhead Studios

The biggest contributor to this jump was, of course, Helldivers 2, which had an enormous month. Becoming one of the most talked about games online, this multiplayer shooter is a huge win for Sony and has outsold pretty much everybody’s expectations. Sony continues to have a fantastic month thanks to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which technically launched on the last day of February but had most of its sales come during March. This entry in the JRPG franchise is the second part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy and, considering how popular JRPGs tend to be in the UK, it’s no surprise to see that this sold very well. This is especially true taking into account its fantastic review scores.

Image by Square Enix

That’s not all for March, though- with the multiplatform Dragon’s Dogma II being a hit for Capcom despite its controversial microtransactions and poor performance on PC. This release actually sold more than Final Fantasy VII Rebirth this month- with Dragon’s Dogma coming at #3 and Final Fantasy at #5. Unfortunately, however, both were still trumped by EA Sports FC 24 (formally FIFA), which continues to be one of the best selling games of the year alongside the eternal Grand Theft Auto V which remains in the top 10 and will until the end of time (or until GTA VI releases- whichever is sooner).

Image by Capcom

Despite this bump in games sold, hardware sales continue to diminish- with a 15% drop down to 117,000 total console sales including PS5, Xbox Series Consoles and Nintendo Switch compared to last March. This falling number isn’t much of a surprise, however. Considering that the Switch is likely in its final year as Nintendo’s main consoles and the latest PlayStation and Xbox hardware enter their fourth full year on the market, gamers are likely holding out until their revised versions (or successors in regard to the Switch) are released in the coming year or two. Until then, its likely we’ll continue to see this figure steadily fall.