EA and Call of Duty top UK December physical charts

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare enjoyed a slight upturn in results in December as it emerged as the UK's best-selling boxed game of the month.

Unfortunately, GfK's December charts data is not comparable with 2015's information - last year's 'Month 12' period took in November 22nd to January 2nd, while this year's ran from November 27th to December 31st. Not only does that mean December 2015's data included an extra week, it also included the lucrative Black Friday sales window - where almost £60m was generated in a single day.

Therefore, although the market looks like it was 31% down year-on-year in December, a more accurate figure would be around 12% down - which is in-line with the overall market during the full year.

The most successful console of the month (in terms of boxed game sales) was PS4, followed by Xbox One and then Nintendo 3DS. EA was the No.1 publisher in terms of units of games sold and revenue generated (thanks to FIFA 17 and Battelfield 1), with Activision slipping to No.2. Ubisoft is the No.3 top publisher due to Watch Dogs 2 and Steep, while Nintendo drops one place to No.4 (units and revenue).

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare was the No.1 game on both PS4 and Xbox One, while FIFA 17 was the biggest title on the previous generation machines (PS3 and 360). Just Dance 2017 topped the Wii charts although had to settle for No.2 in the Wii U rankings behind Mario Kart 8. Pokemon Moon leapfrogged Pokemon Sun in the 3DS charts, with the newly released Super Mario Maker debuting at No.3.

Although PC boxed sales are now relatively small, the best-selling physical PC game of December was Football Manager 2017, with The Sims 4 at No.2.

And here is the GfK/UKIE all-formats Top 20 for December.