75% of games sold in August were downloaded | UK Monthly Charts

1.74 million video games were sold in the UK during August, a slight drop of 1.5% over the year before (GSD data).

It was a quiet month for games overall (note, UK market data for August ends August 24th, so doesn’t include Star Wars Outlaws). Take-Two had a very strong month, with Rockstar’s GTA 5 at No.1 and GTA Online at No.4, Meanwhile, its 2K Games label also performed well, with Borderlands, Mafia and WWE in the Top Ten.

Borderlands returns to the charts following some promotional activity, which would have tied in with the Borderlands movie and the reveal of Borderlands 4. Borderlands 3 is at No.3, New Tales From The Borderlands is at No.6, while the original Borderlands is at No.12.

Overall, 75% of games sold in the UK last month by major games publishers were sold digitally, which is a 10% increase compared with August 2023.

In terms of new releases, the best-selling new game was Madden NFL 25 at No.41. After two weeks on sale, the game is 31.5% down on the previous title. This year’s game does face competition from EA’s own College Football title, which was released in July.

The old TimeSplitters games were also brought to PlayStation with additional trophy support. These aren’t remasters, but they did return to the charts with TimeSplitters 2 at No.218, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect coming in at No.229 and the original TimeSplitters at No.326.

Also new was remasters of Doom and Doom 2. Those games came in at No.241, although it’s worth noting previous owners of those games got upgraded for free. Notable PlayStation flop Concord was the 261st best-selling game of August. That game has since been pulled from sale.

Consoles continue to suffer a slow summer

Just under 75,000 games consoles were sold in the UK during August, a slight drop of 3% over the month before and 45% down over the previous year (GfK figures)

PS5 saw a few more sales in August (up 4%) than July, but it’s down 57% over the same period last year.

Switch sales were down 10% in August over July and down 30% over this time last year.

Meanwhile, the Xbox Series family of consoles sold almost exactly the same number in August as July, but sales were down 22% over last August. The Microsoft console was slightly ahead of Switch in August. Both consoles have been alternating between No.2 and No.3 all year.

In terms of accessories, 516,774 controllers and other items were sold in the UK during August, down 4.5% over July and down 9.6% over August last year.

The DualSense controllers remain the top selling items, as they have done all year. The DualSense White is the best-selling accessory of the year so far, followed by the Midnight Black variety.

However, when it comes to revenue, the pricier PlayStation Portal is No.1 for the year. This week the streaming handheld device is at No.6 in terms of units.

UK GSD August 2024 Top 10 (Digital and Physical)

GSD digital data includes games from participating companies sold via PC digital stores, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo Eshop. Major participating companies are Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Capcom, CD Projekt, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Embracer Group (including Gearbox, Koch Media, Sabre Interactive), Focus Entertainment, Kepler, Konami, Marvellous 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 absentees, alongside smaller studios.