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Red Dead Redemption 2 made it to the top of the monthly charts for December 2018, for the third consecutive month. Sales for Rockstar’s hit were down 20 per cent month-on-month, which is slightly surprising as most titles benefitted from a Christmas boost.
FIFA 19 remained at No.2 with a healthy 35 per cent increase in sales, with the Xbox 360 version in particular being a good seller, with sales for that version up 110 per cent month-on-month. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 also remained steady at No.3, with a 12 per cent increase in sales. Without surprise, these top selling titles for December were also the top selling titles of the year, as ERA reported last week.
Meanwhile, Super Smash Bros Ultimate debuted at No.4 to very healthy sales, confirming its status of biggest launch ever for a Switch title.
For its second month in the charts, Battlefield V saw an impressive 114 per cent boost in sales, climbing three spots to No.5.
Further down the charts, Just Cause 4 debuted at No.14. Month One sales for the title were down 65 per cent compared to its predecessor, 2015’s Just Cause 3. This is physical sales only though, and it’s highly likely that digital sales were much higher now than they were back in 2015.
The only other new entry in the charts in December was Take-Two’s Carnival Games, which debuted at No.42.
In terms of units shifted in December, the market was down 6.1 per cent compared to December 2017 while revenue was only down 0.7 per cent year-on-year. The Switch did particularly well in December, with its market share in units reaching 24.5 per cent, compared to 16.7 per cent in November. It didn’t quite reach the Xbox One though, which had 29.6 per cent of all units sold in December, while the PS4 was far ahead with 41.7 per cent. However, in terms of revenue, the Switch was ahead of the Xbox One (29.5 per cent market share vs 28.2 per cent), as Switch games are more expensive.
Here’s the Top Ten for the period between November 25th and December 29th 2018 (data courtesy of GfK/Ukie):
