European PC and console game sales rose 1% in 2024

188.1 million PC and console games were sold across Europe in 2024, a rise of 1% over the year before.

This is all based on official games data supplied by GSD. For more details, click here.

131.6 million games were sold via digital download stores, a rise of 15% over the previous 12 months, while 56.5 million games were sold via physical retail outlets, a drop of 22%.

EA Sports FC 25 was the best-selling game of the year, which will come as little surprise to anyone who follows European game sales. However, it’s a slightly softer launch this year, with EA Sports FC 25’s sales down 5% compared to what FC 24 managed during the same period.

Call of Duty reclaimed its position as Europe’s second biggest video game (2023’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 only managed No.4). Sales of last year’s game, Black Ops 6, were 9% higher than what Modern Warfare 3 achieved in 2023. And that’s despite the fact that the new game was made available within the Xbox Game Pass subscription service (and those downloads are not tracked here).

It was a quiet year for new releases all round, with only six new games in the top 20 for 2024 (last year, there were 10). In fact, sales of new releases were down 21% in 2024 compared with new releases in 2023.

In total, new releases accounted for 27% of games sold last year, vs 34% in 2023.

Outside of FIFA and Call of Duty, the best-selling new game of the year was Helldivers 2. The surprise hit from PlayStation made it to No.6 in the charts overall. In fact, many of the best-selling new games came as a surprise, with Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero (No.13 overall) and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 (No.15), coming out ahead of big franchise games such as Star Wars Outlaws (No.47), Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (No.49) and Dragon Age: The Veilguard (No.67).

When it comes to older games, there were a few notable strong performances. An aggressive €1 deal saw Ubisoft’s The Crew 2 race up the charts to No.8. Strong promotions for EA’s It Takes Two helped the co-op game rise to No.9 this year (sales up 39% over 2023). Elden Ring rose to No.11 with a 46% sales jump thanks to its new Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. Meanwhile the release of the Fallout TV series, plus some strong discounting, resulted in Fallout 4 rising 183% in sales and reaching No.19.

Over in hardware, it was a tough year for the console market, with sales of games consoles down 21% year-on-year. PS5 was the best-selling platform across tracked markets, but sales fell 20%. Nintendo Switch sales were down 15%, while Xbox Series X/S sales dropped 48%. The console space had a tough year with a lack of major releases, plus the fact the Switch was in its eighth year on sale.

GSD download data includes games from participating companies sold via Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo Eshop. Major participating companies are Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Codemasters, EA, Embracer Group (including Plaion), Focus Entertainment, Konami, Marvellous Games, Microids, Microsoft (including Bethesda), Milestone, Nacon, Paradox Interactive, Quantic Dream, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Take-Two, Tencent, Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Nintendo is the notable absentee, alongside smaller studios and publishers.

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 United Kingdom.

Physical sales data includes all games, and covers Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom.

Console hardware sales cover Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.