Biggest April for five years as pandemic boosts UK game and hardware sales

April saw both and hardware fly off shelves with more than £130m worth of sales, reported GI.biz today based on Gfk sales figures. 

Over a million games were sold in total, making the month the most biggest April since 2015, though we’re not quite sure why that was such a high point admittedly (with no hugely notable releases), except that it came during the initial boom of the current generation. 

April was 13 per cent down month-month from March admittedly. Which goes to show that even a full month of lockdown can’t compete with the might of the Animal Crossing launch – which is easily the biggest-selling game of the year to date. 

The much-awaited Final Fantasy 7 Remake was the best-selling title of the month. It didn’t live up to the boxed sales of Final Fantasy XV. Digital shift will account for some of that, while distribution issues may have affected the title as well, but the fact the Remake was only available on PS4 rather than being cross platform is bound to have taken a chunk out too. 

Behind that, Modern Warfare continues to sell, largely thanks to the incredible popularity of is free Warzone battle royale mode. Activision must be very happy to see the game selling so consistently this far beyond release. Then FIFA 20 (the only ‘football’ available right now) beat out Animal Crossing to the third spot. 

GI also reported that over 210,000 consoles were sold during the month, valued at over £50m. With all three major platforms outselling the equivalent four months from last year – with coronavirus offsetting the usual dip we’d expect for PS4 and XBox One at this stage in their lives. 

The full physical Top 20 (boxed) is as follows, data from Gfk via GI.biz: 

1 Final Fantasy VII: Remake

2 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

3 FIFA 20

4 Animal Crossing: New Horizons

5 Resident Evil 3

6 Forza Horizon 4

7 Grand Theft Auto 5

8 Mario Kart 8: Deluxe

9 Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

10 Persona 5 Royal

11 Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy

12 Luigi’s Mansion 3

13 Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled

14 Red Dead Redemption 2

15 Ring Fit Adventure

16 The Last of Us: Remastered

17 Spyro Reignited Trilogy

18 Doom Eternal

19 Just Dance 2020

20 New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe