FIFA 18 powers into retail – but Switch only 1% of sales

Q4 has now officially launched with the release of FIFA’s new entry, which once again debuted at No.1 to impressive sales.

Two days on shelves were enough for EA’s FIFA 18 to take the top spot by a wide margin. Sales may be down 25 per cent compared to Week One sales for FIFA 17, but the latter spent four days on shelves before GfK closed its report for that week last year. It’s also very likely digital sales for the title have increased year-on-year.

Combined physical sales for Destiny 2, Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild don’t even reach what FIFA 18 sold in two days. 97 per cent of the title’s units were sold on PS4 or Xbox One, with Sony’s console taking the lead with 60 per cent of the copies (against 53 per cent last year). Only one per cent of the title’s units were bought on Switch.

As a result of FIFA 18’s impressive performance, the UK games market was up 337 per cent in units and 545 per cent in value week-on-week.

Meanwhile, Destiny 2 fell to No.2 after three weeks at the top, with sales decreasing 26 per cent week-on-week. Microsoft’s Forza Horizon 3 gained six spots to No.3, as sales increased 253 per cent due to new Xbox bundles. Another title benefitting from a new bundle was Halo 5: Guardians, which re-entered the charts directly at No.11.

For its second week on shelves, Project CARS 2 fell from No.2 to No.7, with sales down 54 per cent.

The only other new entry in the Top 40 was NIS America’s Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, which debuted at No.36.

Here’s the UK Top Ten for the week ending September 30th (data courtesy of GfK/Ukie):

1. FIFA 18 (EA)
2. Destiny 2 (Activision)
3. Forza Horizon 3 (Microsoft)
4. NBA 2K18 (2K)
5. Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar)
6. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (Activision)
7. Project CARS 2 (Bandai Namco)
8. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (Sony)
9. Lego Worlds (Warner Bros)
10. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo)