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After years of waiting we’re finally receiving weekly sales data from across Europe – including pan-European digital sales rankings! The new Games Sales Data (GSD) come to us thanks to the efforts of the Interactive Software Federation Of Europe (ISFE) as we detailed in last month’s interview with its managing director Simon Little.
To recap briefly. The new data will cover both digital (referred to as network) and retail sales. However at present it’s only the network data which is (largely) complete. That data is comprised of full-game sales figures taken from PSN, Xbox and Steam platforms (though not the Switch eShop sadly) for most of the major publishers.
Namely: Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Codemasters, EA, Focus Home Interactive, Koch Media, Microsoft, Milestone, Paradox, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Take 2, Ubisoft and Warner Bros.
Network data is coming in from 42 countries across the whole EMEA region, that includes all the big hitters in Europe such as UK, France and Germany, plus a couple of extras that made up part of the now outdated PAL territories, such as Australia and New Zealand and even India. The data is compiled by B2Boost.
Retail data is still comparatively sparse, with only 12 countries reporting data at present, including France, Italy, Holland and Spain, but not Germany or the UK, which will start providing data by the beginning of next year.
For this reason we’re not going to be looking at the combined network and retail data at present, but rather concentrate on the very exciting proposition of Europe-wide network sales, for which you can see an aggregated Top 50 below for the three services. These are ranked based on the number of units sold, we don’t have value data at present.
Now network sales are highly variable, with sales on the platforms causing large spikes in unit sales. Still, it’s obvious that FIFA 18 is benefitting from the upcoming World Cup. Other ‘full-priced’ titles performing well include Detroit: Become Human and God of War.
The £25 State of Decay 2 is riding high in the charts, especially when you consider that PC sales of the title (which are solely through Microsoft’s own store) aren’t included in the GSD figures. Given the original title was a huge hit on Steam, it’s impressive that it’s console sales alone are performing so well. In this bracket, EA is also selling impressive numbers of its cut-price Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 double-pack, and Dark Souls Remastered is ranked highly.
Just Cause 3 had a price cut to just £5 to coincide with the run-up to the announcement of its sequel at E3. While Mass Effect Andromeda, both Deus Ex titles, Rainbow Six Siege and Bioshock: The Collection are all shifting big numbers based on bargain prices.
More data like this next week, and every week from now on.
