The Elden Ring continues its dominance and has an excellent month. From Software was the most-bought production on the Old Continent in the first months of 2022 – Germany is currently the largest gaming market in Europe.
Gamesindustry.biz presented GSD Market Data, which confirms that 76.1 million games were sold throughout Europe in the first six months of 2022 – this is a 13.5% increase compared to the same period of 2021.
Gamers have reached 32 million boxes and 44 million digital versions, but it’s worth remembering that while the data covers most markets and stores, Nintendo does not present the results from the eShop.
In 2022, Germany was currently the largest sales market for games – players in this country bought nearly 15.4 million productions (+ 13.6% compared to the same period of 2021). The second place went to Great Britain (14.3 million, + 2%) and the third to France (10.2 million, + 12.1%).
Elden Ring was the most-bought game, but it is worth noting that Pokémon Legends: Arceus (3rd place) could have recorded an even better result, but in this case we do not know the data from the eShop. The situation in the ranking would probably be different, because the results of all Switch games (and there are quite a lot of them here!) Are based only on data from physical distribution.
Digital games are becoming more and more dominant – 76% of games in Great Britain, 67% in Germany and 63% in France were purchased from e-shops.
Due to problems with the availability of, among others, PS5 – in Europe there was a decrease of 21% in sales of consoles. Sony recorded a 44% worse result, and even in this situation PlayStation 5 was the second most popular console after the Nintendo Switch (+ 7% compared to the previous year). The Xbox Series X | S achieved a 9% increase in interest.
Across Europe, gamers bought over 8.6 million console accessories, and the PS5 DualSense was the most-bought pad (+ 53%). In the first six months of the year, players reached for 10.2 million cards with subscriptions and top-up wallets.
This is the ranking of game sales in 2022 (physical + digital distribution):
- Elden Ring (Bandai Namco)
- FIFA 22 (EA)
- Pokémon Legends: Arceus (Nintendo)*
- Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
- LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (Warner Bros)
- Horizon: Forbidden West (Sony)
- Grand Touring 7 (Sony)
- Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo)*
- Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar)
- Nintendo Switch Sports (Nintendo)*
- Mario Party Superstars (Nintendo)*
- Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Nintendo)*
- NBA 2K22 (2K Games)
- F1 2022 (Codemasters)
- Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (Nintendo)*
- Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (Ubisoft)
- Big Brain Academy: Brain vs Brain (Nintendo)*
- Call of Duty: Vanguard (Activision Blizzard)
- Far Cry 6 (Ubisoft)
- Just Dance 2022 (Ubisoft)
* – Nintendo does not provide eShop data.