In a nutshell: Bethesda (and Microsoft) continue to ride high on the Amazon Fallout TV series tidal wave. Sales of anything Fallout are up on all platforms, with Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 76 landing in the top ten for April. Fallout 3 almost made it in there, too, coming in at 11.
Game sales data from analytics group GSD shows that Fallout 4 was the best-selling game for April in the UK. While the list did not mention sales totals, GamesIndustry.biz notes that the nine-year-old title was "comfortably" in first place ahead of number two EA Sports FC 24.
The popularity is undoubtedly due to the success of Amazon's Fallout television adaptation, which critics and viewers praised. It also got the go-ahead for a second season less than a week after its debut. Additionally, Fallout: New Vegas (8) and Fallout 76 (9) made the top 10, and Fallout 3 just missed it, coming in at number 11.
Contributing to the ranking is that overall, April game sales were down by seven percent from 2023. Last year, Star Wars: Jedi Survivor and Dead Island 2 drove game sales in April. This year, the month didn't have anything comparable, so it didn't take much for Fallout 4 to slip past the waning Helldivers II (third-place) juggernaut.
Bethesda's "next-gen" Fallout 4 update and deep discounts on everything Fallout lent to the franchise's boosted game sales numbers. There was also the promise of the finished release of Fallout London on April 23. Despite being fan-made, the mod is almost as big as vanilla Fallout 4. Undoubtedly, the anticipation of Fallout London contributed to FO4 sales in the UK.
Unfortunately, Bethesda's update ruined those plans. In addition to making Fallout London incompatible, the next-gen patch was only good on PlayStation 5. The Xbox and PC versions contain numerous bugs Bethesda promised to fix in the coming weeks.
Fallout 4 Fans Are Begging Bethesda To Stop Updating The Game https://t.co/cCRzJtS0qi pic.twitter.com/UYIAkDfFtR
– Kotaku (@Kotaku) May 13, 2024
While the extra Fallout sales helped limit the overall software plunge to seven percent, hardware struggled in April, with all three consoles down double digits and selling a collective 71,000 units on the month.
Microsoft might have expected its Activision Blizzard acquisition to generate hardware sales by offering the best of those studios. However, Xbox Series sales were down almost 24 percent in April. Last year's Diablo 4 remains an over-monetized, online-only mess that fans have not forgiven. Furthermore, Call of Duty titles can't be exclusive to Xbox for ten years due to Microsoft's concessions to regulators.
Despite being the console leader, the PS5 library suffers from too many PS4/PS5-designed blockbusters and too few good PS5-only exclusives. This weakness is reflected in console sales dropping by just over 25 percent. Likewise, Switch sales dove 38 percent in April. The seven-year-old handheld is due for a refresh, and with Nintendo finally confirming the upcoming hardware's existence, Switch fans are holding on to their money until at least 2025.
Fallout 4 surfs tidal wave of renewed interest to the top of UK's best seller list for April
