January game sales fall as PS5 and Xbox stock shortages continue | UK Monthly Charts
Nintendo Switch sales grew in January in the UK
There was a sharp decline in sales of games, consoles and accessories during January.
2.29 million video games were sold in the UK last month, the latest GSD data shows (which covers all physical games and digital games from most AAA publishers).
It's a drop of 10% over the same period last year. January 2021 benefitted from continue strong sales of the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Grand Theft Auto 5, primarily via digital platforms.
The year's January sales was driven by Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which was comfortably the best-selling game of the month. This is despite the fact that Nintendo only shares physical sales (so Pokémon's digital sales are not counted).
In fact, thanks to Pokémon, physical game sales in January are actually ever-so-slightly up compared with the same period the month before.
January is a typically quiet month for game releases, and this year was no exception. The next biggest new release of the month was Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection for PS5. The game reached No.8.
Over in hardware, GfK panel data shows that nearly 122,000 games consoles was sold in the UK during January, which is a drop of 18.4% compared with the previous year.
This is down to reduced availability for the Xbox Series S|X and PS5 consoles. Also, PS4 and Xbox One consoles were still selling units in January last year, whereas this year both older machines have slowed substantially.
Nintendo Switch, which was the No.1 console of the month, actually posted a 35% increase in sales compared with the same period last year. It was the only platform to grow year-on-year.
Xbox Series S|X was the second best-selling console of January, The vast majority of sales was for the Series S variant.
Also with the GfK data, 761,000 accessories were sold in January 2022, which is down 15.6% compared with the same period last year. A fall in console sales negatively impacted sales of extra controllers and headsets.
A drop in sales of PS5 month-on-month means that the DualSense has lost its position as the best-selling accessory of the month. In its place is the PS4 DualShock Controller (Black).
The DualSense White controller slips to No.2 and DualSense Black falls two places to No.4. There was a rise in sales for Turtle Beach headsets. The Ear Force Recon 50X Headset (Black) was the third best-selling accessory of the month, while the 50P Headset (Black) has jumped seven places to No.5.
GSD January 2022 Top 20 Games (Digital + Physical)
| Position | Title | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pokémon Legends: Arceus (Nintendo)* | |
| 2 | FIFA 22 | |
| 3 | Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar) | |
| 4 | Call of Duty: Vanguard (Activision Blizzard) | |
| 5 | Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar) | |
| 6 | F1 2022 (EA) | |
| 7 | Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Sony) | |
| 8 | Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (Sony)/th> | |
| 9 | Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo)* | |
| 10 | Minecraft: Switch Edition (Microsoft/Nintendo) | |
| 11 | Just Dance 2022 (Ubisoft) | |
| 12 | Monopoly Plus (Ubisoft) | |
| 13 | Spider-Man (Sony) | |
| 14 | Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege (Ubisoft) | |
| 15 | Far Cry 6 (Ubisoft) | |
| 16 | Monster Hunter Rise (Capcom) | |
| 17 | LEGO Harry Potter Collection (Warner Bros) | |
| 18 | NBA 2K22 (2K Games) | |
| 19 | Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Extraction (Ubisoft) | |
| 20 | Assassin's Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft) |
* Digital data unavailable
GSD digital data includes games from participating companies sold via Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo Eshop. Participating companies are Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Big Ben Interactive, Capcom, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Focus Home Interactive, Koch Media, Konami, Microids, Microsoft, Milestone, Paradox Interactive, Quantic Dream, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Strelka, Take-Two, Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Nintendo and Bethesda are the notable absentees, alongside smaller studios.