11.6 million PC and console games were sold in European markets in May. Compared to the same five-week period in 2023, this is a drop of nearly 17%.
These are GSD figures that track all digital game sales from most major publishers (missing data for Nintendo) and physical game sales in all major European markets.
The main reason for the decline is that last year we released The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which was a huge hit. To put that into context, Zelda alone sold more copies in May 2023 than the entire Top Ten sold in May 2024. Last year we also saw the release of Hogwarts Legacy on PS4 and Xbox One, which was also a strong performer.
The #1 selling game in May this year was EA Sports FC 24, followed by Grand Theft Auto 5. F1 2024 raced in at #3, having launched a good two weeks earlier this year. However, the Codemasters game got off to a slow start, with launch sales down 35% from last year’s game.
The PC version of Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut sends the PlayStation game to No.4. Meanwhile, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is in 5th place. Nintendo doesn’t share digital sales with the charts, so the game may have risen higher in reality.
Looking at similar games, sales of the new Paper Mario were down 8% compared to the first two weeks of last year’s Super Mario role-playing game, and down 8.5% from 2020’s Paper Mario: The Origami King.
The only other new game in the Top 100 was Homeworld 3 (#76).
Finally, price activity related to Star Wars brought Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order back into the Top 10.
Console sales plummet due to difficult Switch comparisons
In the markets tracked, 311,000 game consoles were sold in May 2023, a 40% drop from the same period the previous year.
All console platforms saw a big drop, with the Nintendo Switch suffering the biggest drop. Again, this is because last May we saw the release of Zelda and a special Zelda edition OLED Switch model.
Meanwhile, accessory sales fell 25% over the same five-week period, again led by the DualSense controller (which actually saw year-over-year sales growth).
European GSD May 2024 Top 10 (Digital + Physical)
| Position | Title |
|---|---|
| 1 | EA Sports FC 24 (EA) |
| 2 | Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar) |
| 3 | F1 24 (Codemasters) |
| 4 | Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut (Sony) |
| 5 | Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (Nintendo) |
| 6 | Helldivers 2 (Sony) |
| 7 | Hogwarts Legacy (Warner Bros) |
| 8 | Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar) |
| 9 | Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (EA) |
| 10 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision Blizzard) |
* Digital data not available
GSD digital data includes games from participating companies sold through Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo Eshop. Major participating companies are Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Embracer Group (including Gearbox, Koch Media, Saber Interactive), Focus Entertainment, Konami, Marvelous Games, Microids, Microsoft (including Bethesda), Milestone, Nacon, Paradox Interactive, Quantic Dream, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Take-Two, Tencent, Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Nintendo and 505 Games are notable absentees, along with smaller studios.
Digital data includes games sold in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania , Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
Physical data includes all games, but only those sold in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Console hardware sales cover Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Accessory sales cover the same markets but do not include Switzerland.
