EA's series of football simulation games, FIFA, is one of those games that never seems to leave the list of top 10 physical sellers in the UK and FIFA 20 has once again proven the franchise's popularity, becoming the biggest launch of the year.
Naturally, it's the UK so FIFA 20 doing great is almost given, and we're sure EA won't lament the loss to the game's predecessor. In fact, it's a pretty great loss considering we're talking about physical sales, which have been showing a downward trend in favour of digital distribution methods. According to industry data, boxed sales are actually 15.5 per cent lower than last year.
FIFA 20's boxed sales dropped by 7 per cent, which is way better than most franchises. Namely, recent trends have shown that matching half the physical sales of a game's predecessor is just about the norm, although there are a few games that still defy the odds.
In terms of platforms, PlayStation 4 sales took a slight step back, but you could just as easily say Xbox One and Nintendo Switch versions picked up and you wouldn't be far off. As reported by GamesIndustry, Microsoft was flogging hardware bundles via Game, Amazon and Microsoft's store, where they bundled FIFA 20, Minecraft, Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 3 with the All-Digital Xbox One S for an attractive price.
As a result, Sea of Thieves ended in seventh place; Minecraft came in ninth while Forza Horizon 3 sits in 10th place. All of them were previously below the 20th place, so the bundles obviously worked great for team Xbox, who found an awesome way to make EA's release work for their own lineup too.
The rest of the chart saw The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening drop one spot to accommodate for FIFA 20 and same goes for Gearbox's Borderlands, which has been making history with its launch figures.
EA
The chart looks as follows:
- FIFA 20
- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
- Borderlands 3
- Gears 5
- Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
- Tom Clancy's The Division 2
- Sea of Thieves
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
- Minecraft: Xbox Edition
- Forza Horizon 3
FIFA 20, EA Sports' new instalment in the football sim franchise
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