January is traditionally a tough month for gaming. With all the biggest titles of the year being released before the busy Christmas period, this more often than not leaves a void in new gaming content at the start of the new year.

With that said, there were still 2.47 million video games sold throughout the UK this past month, many of which came from games discounted in the January sales. Even though over 2 million games were purchased, this is actually a decrease of around 3% compared with figures from the previous January.

Despite not being the No.1 game in the UK for 2023, EA Sports FC 24 ended January as the top-selling game in the country. This marks the second year that the EA football sim has led the charts in January. However, this January, EA Sports FC 24 sold more copies than it did the year before.

In somewhat of a shack up to the charts, The Last of Us Part 2: Remastered took the No.2 spot as the second best-selling game this past month, ahead of both Call of Duty: MW3 and Hogwarts Legacy. January sales of the Sony exclusive game were greatly boosted thanks to a ‘£10 upgrade’ offer, meaning that owners of the game on the PS4 could upgrade to the PS5 version for just £10.

There was only one actual new release to make it into the top 10 this past month and that was Tekken 8. The latest installment in the popular fighting game franchise made its debut in the January charts at No.7.

The other new releases of the month didn’t fare quite as well. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was the next highest new release in the charts but had to settle for the No.15 position. As for the rest of the top 10, it pretty much consisted of the same players that featured throughout most of last year.

Call of Duty: MW3 jumped over Hogwarts’s Legacy for the No.3 spot. Rockstar continues to dominate the charts with Grand Theft Auto V, Grand Theft Auto Online, and Red Dead Redemption 2 all still featuring in the top 10. Super Mario Bros. Wonder was the lone Nintendo entry at No.9. While Sony’s PS5 exclusive Spider-Man 2 finished the month of January in the No.10 spot.

Sales of hardware consoles also fell this January. Compared with figures from the year before, there was a 19% drop in sales averages, with a combined total of just over 110,000 consoles being sold in the UK.

All three platforms (Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo) reported a decrease in overall console sales this January compared with figures from the same period the year before. Xbox Series X/S sales dropped by 7%, sales of the Nintendo Switch were down just over 30%, and even the PS5, which enjoyed incredible sales figures throughout 2023, has now reported a drop of around 17%.

Each console has an explanation for at least some of these decreases though. For Nintendo, the Switch is now almost seven years old, while sales for the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox X/S were greatly boosted in 2023 from being fully available in stores after stock shortages, a slight drop-off in sales is to be expected now that the consoles are more readily available.

The only avenue that really enjoyed any kind of increase this past month was in the accessories department. Gaming accessories and add-ons saw an increase of close to 10% compared to the January before. In total, some 687,000 were sold throughout the UK. The majority of this can be attributed to PS5 and Xbox game controllers, coming as a result of both consoles selling well over the holidays.

2024 might have gotten off to somewhat of a slow start as far as sales figures are concerned, but everyone knows that there is never a dull year in the world of gaming, and this year will be no exception. For all the latest news as always as soon as it drops, stay tuned here.