By Sagar V. Mankar 
The UK gaming industry took a significant hit in 2024, with both hardware and software sales dropping across the board.
According to the Entertainment Retail Association‘s yearly report (via GI.Biz), console sales fell by a pretty steep 25.3%, while software revenue dipped 4.4%.
In 2024, over 2 million console units were sold in the UK, with PlayStation 5 leading with about 1 million (almost 50%). However, PS5 shows a 21.1% decrease from the previous year. Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch each sold approximately 500,000 units, showing steeper declines of 29.1% and 27.6%, respectively.
As for the software sales, both digital and physical formats saw a drop in revenue by 4.4% to £4.61 billion. Physical game sales particularly took the biggest hit, plummeting by 34.5% to £322 million, while digital sales dipped slightly by 1% but remained dominant at £4.29 billion.
What happened? Well, reports attributed the downfall to factors – aging consoles, not enough blockbuster games, industry-wide layoffs, and some high-profile flops like Concord and Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League. Helldivers 2 was one of the few surprise hits that helped brighten an otherwise gloomy year.
But it wasn’t all doom and gloom! Gaming subscriptions actually saw some nice growth, with services like PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass increasing by 12% to £560 million. Mobile and tablet subscriptions also jumped by 13% to £85.6 million.
PlayStation Plus remains the subscription king with a 53.6% market share, followed by Xbox Game Pass at 33.6%. Other players include Steam (23.2%), Amazon (16.8%), and Nintendo Switch Online (13.6%). This growth stands out because gaming subscriptions have mostly flatlined globally. Though it’s worth noting that recent price hikes from Microsoft and Sony might explain the revenue bump rather than actual subscriber growth.
Mobile gaming also bucked the downward trend, with revenue climbing 2.6% to £1.58 billion. Most of this came from microtransactions and DLC, which grew 2.1% to £1.5 billion. Full mobile game purchases increased by 3.1% to £46.2 million.
Smartphones remain the go-to gaming device for most people, accounting for 36.2% of gaming activity. Traditional consoles follow at 24.9%, with PCs (18.8%), handheld consoles (8.7%), and tablets (6.6%) making up the rest.
As for the bestsellers, EA Sports FC 25 topped the charts, with Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Hogwarts Legacy rounding out the top three. However, both FC 25 and Black Ops 6 sold fewer copies than their predecessors. FC 25 moved 2.1 million units compared to FC 24’s 2.4 million, while Black Ops 6 sold 1.2 million copies—about 76,000 fewer than Modern Warfare 3.
The Call of Duty dip is particularly head-scratching since Black Ops 6 got much better reviews than the widely panned Modern Warfare 3. Another concerning sign: only nine of the top 20 bestselling games were actually released in 2024, with one being The Last Of Us Part 2 Remastered.
Despite these challenges, the industry remains hopeful that 2025 will bring a market revival, particularly with the highly anticipated launches of the Nintendo Switch 2 and Grand Theft Auto 6.