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It’s a performance we probably should get used to: Red Dead Redemption 2 took the top spot of the charts for its second month on shelves. Much like in October, sales for Rockstar’s hit went massively in favour of PS4, which took 66 per cent of the units shifted in November, against 34 per cent for Xbox One.
Sales for RDR2 are up 59 per cent compared to the original Red Dead Redemption’s cumulative sales after two months. However, launching in late October was undoubtedly an advantage compared to Red Dead’s mid-May launch back in 2010.
Meanwhile, FIFA 19 climbed one spot to No.2 in November despite a slight 23 per cent decrease in sales month-on-month. However, the Switch version saw an impressive 152 per cent rise month-on-month, likely due to Black Friday price cuts.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy debuted at No.4, with the PS4 version taking an impressive 71 per cent of the sales of the remastered collection.
Fallout 76 had to settle for No.5 for its first month in the charts. Sales for Bethesda’s multiplayer-only title are down 78 per cent compared to Month One sales of 2015’s Fallout 4. Obviously, this is only physical sales and it’s highly likely that Fallout 76, being an online-only title, shifted more digital copy that the previous entry in the franchise at launch. Unfortunately, Bethesda hasn’t shared any figures.
On a similar theme of big franchises struggling at retail, Battlefield V debuted at No.8, with sales down 77 per cent compared to launch sales for 2016’s Battlefield 1. But, once again, EA’s important digital shift could partly explain this poor performance.
Meanwhile, Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu debuted at No.7 and Let’s Go Eevee charted at No.10 – however, if the Nintendo titles had been considered one SKU, it would have entered the charts at No.4. The two Pokémon titles have sold 19 per cent more copies than Spyro at retail, 39 per cent more copies than Fallout 76 and 87 per cent more copies than Battlefield V during their first month in the charts.
Further down the charts, Fortnite: Deep Freeze Bundle debuted at No.12 with a remarkable balance between platforms: 36 per cent of the sales went in favour of PS4, 34 per cent for Xbox One and 29 per cent for Switch. Other new entries in the charts included Farming Simulator 19 at No.24, Hitman 2 at No.31, Football Manager 2019 at No.34 and Diablo III: Eternal Collection at No.38 (though this is technically a re-entry as only the Switch version launched in November).
Overall the market was down 19.6 per cent in units and 20.2 per cent in value compared to November 2017. The Switch took a much bigger market share last month: 16.7 per cent of game copies shifted in November were on Switch, against 7.4 per cent only in October.
Here’s the Top Ten for the period between October 28th and November 24th 2018 (data courtesy of GfK/Ukie):
