FIFA 18 beats Destiny 2 to UK No.1 in September in just two days

September was a heavy month in games, marking the beginning of Q4 and providing a much needed boost to retail. Month-on-month, the market was up 156 per cent in units and 290 per cent in value. Compared to September last year, the market had a healthy 16 per cent growth in value and 7 per cent in units.

As expected, FIFA 18 took the top spot in the monthly charts after only two days on shelves, as GfK closed its report for the month on September 30th. EA’s football behemoth did particularly well on PS4, with 60 per cent of the copies going to Sony’s platform, against 37 per cent for Microsoft’s Xbox One. As a result, EA took the top spot in the publisher charts, both in units (EA games represented 39 per cent of the market in September) and value (50.1 per cent) .

Destiny 2 had to settle for No.2 for its first month in the charts, much like its predecessor in 2014, which was beaten by FIFA 15 back then. Month One physical sales for Destiny 2 are down 50 per cent compared to the original game. While these figures only represent retail sales, and there’s been a significant shift to digital in the last four years, that will be little comfort to those selling physical copies of the game.

The Top Ten is full of other new entries. NBA 2K18 landed No.5 with sales up 28.5 per cent compared to last year’s entry. Ubisoft’s Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle debuted at No.8 to decent sales, though a bit underwhelming for a Mario title. Meanwhile, Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer 2018 landed No.10, once again losing its fight against FIFA and with sales down 16.7 per cent compared to PES 2017.

Further down the charts, Bandai Namco’s Project CARS 2 debuted at No.14, while its predecessor entered the monthly charts at No.2 back in May 2015. Sales for the sequel are down 75 per cent compared to Project CARS.

A wealth of new titles continued to appear in the rest of the rankings, with the boxed release of Ark: Survival Evolved charting No.18, Bethesda’s Dishonored: Death of the Outsider landing No.22, PS4 exclusive Everybody’s Golf debuting at No.23, and Nintendo’s Pokkn Tournament entering the charts at No.26.

Debuting in the charts this month is also The Escapists 2, Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition, Knack II, Metroid: Samus Returns, Yakuza Kiwami and Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite, making it a grand total of 16 new entries in the charts this September.

Here’s the Top Ten for September (August 27th to September 30th), data courtesy of GfK/Ukie:

1. FIFA 18 (EA) – NEW
2. Destiny 2 (Activision) – NEW
3. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (Sony)
4. Forza Horizon 3 (Microsoft)
5. NBA 2K18 (Take-Two) – NEW
6. Grand Theft Auto V (Take-Two)
7. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (Activision)
8. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Ubisoft) – NEW
9. F1 2017 (Codemasters)
10. Pro Evolution Soccer 2018 (Konami) – NEW