GRcade

UK video games (excluding hardware) generated £3.864 billion last year, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association.

Digital accounted for over £3 billion of that number, representing 80.1 per cent of the market. Digital grew 12.5 per cent year-on-year, whereas physical sales dropped slightly by 2.8 per cent (as revealed yesterday).

It seems a bit negative for the physical market, but these figures do not include hardware. And actually more consoles were sold in 2018 than in 2017. GamesIndustry.biz can reveal over 2.4 million games machines were sold in the UK last year. PS4 was the biggest selling console, with sales flat year-on-year, but Nintendo Switch was the biggest growth area, with Switch console sales up more than 20 per cent.

UKs Top 20 best-selling games of 2018 (Retail & Digital):

1. FIFA 19 - 1,889,401 (Down from 2.7m in 2017, 25% digital)

2. Red Dead Redemption 2 - 1,757,212

3. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 - 1,172,855

4. Spider-Man - 676,621

5. Mario Kart 8: Deluxe - 458,675 (up from 341,531 in 2017)

6. Far Cry 5 - 434,133

7. Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy - 430,551

8. God of War - 399,395

9. Forza Horizon 4 - 392,960

10. FIFA 18 - 351,788

11. Grand Theft Auto V - 339,805

12. Spyro Reignited Trilogy - 333,725

13. Battlefield V - 313,100

14. Assassin's Creed Odyssey - 305,937

15. Super Smash Bros Ultimate - 284,155

16. Super Mario Odyssey - 240,710

17. Call of Duty: WWII - 230,576

18. Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu - 227,767 (if combined with Eevee would be at No 11)

19. Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 226,125

20. Fallout 76 - 218,534

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ ... nt-digital

Mario Kart is a beast.

Only having 3 games break a million goes to show how small our market is.

2 FIFAs in the top 10 - cha-ching.

Mario Kart 8 and GTA V did impressive numbers last year, bloody hell.

so Let’s go Eevee must be about 120-130k ish.

Eurogamer wrote:80 per cent of UK video game sales are now digital

Click for source.

... . In recent years I have moved to totally digital purchasing on my PS4 and, in the last few months (and having got a larger memory card) I have started downloading on my Switch, too. I miss the boxes (and manuals!) but I like the "instant" delivery, easier accessibility and the quieter console noise (PS4).

Just to point out, that 80 percent is referring to revenue and not pure game sales.
That means 80 percent of the £3.864 billion came from digital selling, and that includes Mobile and Microtransaction revenue. You've also got digital costing more than physical and/or holding a higher price for longer than physical.

I think actual digital sales of game copies were something closer to 20-30%

All that plus a lot of games are digital only