11.6 million PC and console games were sold in European markets in May. Compared to the same five-week period in 2023, this is a drop of nearly 17%.
These are the GSD figures, which track all digital game sales from most major publishers (Nintendo data is missing) and physical game sales in all major European markets.
The main reason for the decline is that last year we had the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which was a huge hit. To put that into context, Zelda alone sold more copies in May 2023 than the entire Top Ten sold in May 2024. Last year also saw the release of Hogwarts Legacy on PS4 and Xbox One, which was also a performer of strong.
The No.1 selling game in May this year was EA Sports FC 24, followed by Grand Theft Auto 5. F1 2024 competes in the No.3 spot, launching two weeks earlier this year. However, the Codemasters game is off to a slow start, with launch sales down 35% compared to last year’s game.
The PC release of Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut sends the PlayStation game to No. 4. Meanwhile, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door comes in at No. 5. Nintendo doesn’t break out digital sales with the charts, so the game may have come in higher in reality.
Looking at comparable games, sales of New Paper Mario are down 8% compared to the opening two weeks of last year’s Super Mario RPG and 8.5% lower than 2020’s Paper Mario: The Origami King.
The only other new game in the Top 100 was Homeworld 3 (No.76).
Finally, Star Wars-related awards activity had pushed Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order back into the top ten.
Console sales fall sharply in difficult Switch comparisons
Across all tracked markets, 311,000 game consoles were sold in May 2023, which is a 40% drop compared to the same period a year ago.
All console platforms saw a big drop, with the Nintendo Switch taking the biggest drop. Again, this is because last May saw the release of Zelda and a special Zelda edition of the OLED Switch model.
Meanwhile, accessory sales fell 25% for the same five-week period, once again led by the DualSense controller (which actually saw sales increase year-over-year).
European GSD May 2024 Top 10 (digital + physical)
| POSITION | TITLE |
|---|---|
| 1 | EA Sports FC 24 (EA) |
| 2 | Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar) |
| 3 | F1 24 (Codemasters) |
| 4 | Ghost of Tsushima: Director (Sony) |
| 5 | Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (Nintendo) |
| 6 | Helldivers 2 (Sony) |
| 7 | Hogwarts Legacy (Warner Bros.) |
| 8 | Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar) |
| 9 | Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (EA) |
| 10 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision Blizzard) |
* Digital data not available
GSD digital data includes games from participating companies sold through Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo Eshop. Major participating companies are Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Embracer Group (including Gearbox, Koch Media, Saber Interactive), Focus Entertainment, Konami, Marvelous Games, Microids, Microsoft (including Bethesda), Milestone, Nacon, Paradox Interactive, Quantic Dream, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Take-Two, Tencent, Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Nintendo and 505 Games are the notable absences, along with smaller studios.
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 the United Kingdom.
Physical data includes all games, but only those sold in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Console hardware sales cover Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Accessory sales cover the same markets but do not include Switzerland.