European game industry sales for Dec. 2023 and full-year revealed

January brings with it a deluge of data to break down for last year. Over in Europe, the numbers have been crunched and we finally have a look at what closed out the year on top, as well as the biggest games and hardware for 2023 in general. First up, let’s take a look at the top 10 software for Dec. 2023. Please remember that Nintendo doesn’t report digital data, so any first-party title on the list only reflects physical sales.

We’ve also got some more specific stats on software overall, as well as details on individual titles:

• 26.6 million PC and Console games were sold across Europe in December
• sales improved 3.6% compared with the same period in 2022
• EA Sports FC 24 sales are down 11.5% compared with FIFA 23 in December 2022

Finally, we’ve got some hardware stats for December 2023 as well:

• 1.27 million consoles were sold across tracked European markets during December
• this is up nearly 16% up over the same four-week period in 2022
• PS5 was #1 and sales grew 66% year-on-year
• Switch was #2 and sales fell 7% compared with December 2022
• Xbox Series S and X were #3 and sales fell 19% year-on-year

Moving on, we also have the complete breakdown of game industry sales in Europe for all of 2023. Let’s kick off that round of data with the top 20 software titles. Just as we said above, Nintendo doesn’t report digital data, so any first-party title on the list only reflects physical sales.

Just as we did for December, here’s the breakdown of software sales specifics for the whole of 2023 in Europe:

• 182 million PC and console games were sold across Europe in 2023
• this is a rise of 1.7% over the year before
• EA Sports FC 24 sold 9% fewer units in 2023 compared with FIFA 23 in 2022
• with Hogwarts Legacy, outside of EA football games, no game has sold this many units in a calendar year since these charts began back in 2017
• in the top 100 you’ll find NBA 2K24 (No.33), Mortal Kombat 1 (No.53), and Just Dance 2024 (No.82)
• PC was No.1 in terms of game sales, ahead of PS5 (No.2), Switch (No.3), PS4 (No.4) and Xbox Series S and X (No.5).
• Switch and PS4 were the only platforms to post a drop in game sales year-on-yea
• the biggest European market for games was the UK, ahead of Germany (No.2), France (No.3), Spain (No.4) and Italy (No.5).

Finally, we have the details on hardware sales across Europe for 2023 as well:

• 7.4 million video game consoles were sold in 2023, which is a rise of nearly 42% year-over-year
• PS5 was #1 and saw a 177% increase in sales year-on-year
• Switch was #2 and saw a dip of 10% over the year before
• Xbox Series X and S were #3 and saw a drop of 18% over the year before