Command & Conquer invades European March charts as sales improve | European Monthly Charts

11.04.2024 - 09:27 / gamesindustry.biz

Command & Conquer games flooded the European charts in March after EA put out a bundle of games on Steam.

Five titles in the iconic strategy series make the Top Ten, led by Command & Conquer Generals at No.4. The result of this means that new releases such as WWE 2K24 (No.12), Rise Of The Ronin (No.18) and Princess Peach Showtime (No.23), all chart lower than expected. There are 11 Command & Conquer titles in the Top 20.

In total, 15.9 million console and PC games were sold across European markets, according to GSD (which tracks digital and physical console and PC game sales). That’s a rise of 35% over the same four-week period last year. For the full quarter, game sales are up more than 9% across Europe, which is better than many analysts had predicted. This is despite the absence of Palworld data from the charts (Palworld was a particularly big hit in January).

For March, Helldivers 2’s stay at the top of the European charts is over as the game drops to No.2, but it's still delivering impressive numbers. EA Sports FC24 reclaimed its position at No.1.

There was one new game that managed to overcome the deluge of Command & Conquer titles and that was Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2, which was a strong hit across Europe. It’s one of two big Japanese RPGs to launch this year so far, following Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth at the end of February. Comparing the first two weeks on sale for both games, Final Fantasy just about beat Dragon’s Dogma. Note: Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth was only released on PS5, whereas Dragon’s Dogma 2 is on PS5, PC and Xbox.

In terms of hardware, for the same four-week period console sales are down 27% to 317,090 units across tracked markets (UK and Germany data is missing. To see UK console sales, click here).

PS5 saw the biggest drop of nearly 31% year-on-year for March, but remains comfortably the best-selling console across Europe. This is partially due to the fact that PS5 became freely available this time last year, so there was a surge in console sales in early 2023.

In terms of accessories, 1.2 million of these products were sold across tracked European markets, a drop of 0.3% over the year before. The DualSense controller for PS5 leads the way comfortably, with the Xbox Series Wireless controller in second place.

GSD digital data includes games from participating companies sold via Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo Eshop. Major participating companies are Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Embracer Group (including Gearbox, Koch Media, Sabre Interactive), Focus Entertainment, Konami, Marvellous Games, Microids, Microsoft (including Bethesda), Milestone, Nacon, Paradox Interactive, Quantic Dream, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Take-Two,