UK physical game sales are flat year-on-year

23.7 million physical video games were sold in the UK during 2017, the latest data from GfK reveals.

It is pretty much identical to last year's number of 23.8m - a decline of 0.4%.

In terms of revenue, the amount of money made by physical games has risen slightly by 2.1%. This is due to an increase in game pricing over 2017, driven partially by the higher priced Nintendo Switch games. In total, £792m was made from physical software sales in 2017.

We have requested additional sales figures for UK hardware and accessories from GfK, which will likely show some growth for the UK physical retail market overall.

The best-selling game of the two weeks over Christmas and New Year was Call of Duty: WWII, which has now scored nine consecutive weeks at the top of the charts. It equals the number of consecutive weeks Modern Warfare 2 spent at the top of the charts, and if it gets two more weeks, it will match Call of Duty: Black Ops III as the most No.1s overall for a Call of Duty game.

Call of Duty: WWII has already well passed Infinite Warfare's lifetime sales, and was the UK's second best-selling game of 2017. The best-selling game was FIFA 18, which was the No.2 over Christmas and New Year. FIFA 18 has been on sale for five weeks longer than Call of Duty: WWII.

Physical sales of FIFA are actually down quite notably compared with the 2017 edition. The number of FIFA 18 units sold in the UK is 16.2% down compared with FIFA 17, however, digital sales have not been taken into account.

Indeed, it wasn't an especially happy Christmas for EA. Take Star Wars: Battlefront II, the company's big Christmas shooter is down 51% compared with sales of last year's Battlefield 1 (which was on sale for four weeks longer by the end of the year) and 49% compared with the first Star Wars Battlefront (the first EA one, anyway).

Sales of the new Need for Speed is also down 11% compared with its 2016 predecessor. Although, once again, digital numbers will likely have made up for some of this decline (if not all of it).

It may have been a tough few months for EA, but it was a strong end of the year for Ubisoft. Assassin's Creed Origins is up 32% in sales compared with last year's Watch Dogs 2, and 13% up compared with Assassin's Creed Syndicate (which was on sale for a week longer back in 2016). Nintendo also had a strong end to the year, with Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8: Deluxe and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild all in the Top Ten come New Year. All three games sold over 300,000 copies a piece so far, with Mario Kart 8 ending the year as the No.1 Switch title (just narrowly ahead of Super Mario Odyssey).

The late release of the year, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, performed strongly. The boxed version didn't feature a disc (it's just a code in a box), but still debuted at No.4, dropping to No.8 and ending the year at No.11. It is likely that digital will have made up the bulk of sales, but it still performed well as a Christmas gift.

Here is the GfK/UKIE Top Ten for the Week Ending December 30th.