Physical game sales in the UK are plummeting, Ubisoft says

New tax filings for Ubisoft's overseas publishing division reveals key stats on game sales in the region.

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Ubisoft Limited, the company's publishing group in the UK, gives a dour update on the state of physical game sales in the UK. According to the company's full-year earnings records, the physical games market in the United Kingdom has dropped heavily, with sales plummeting by -35% in FY25 compared to the year prior.

The group also says that console sales slid by -25% in FY25 (April 2024 - March 2025), indicating that Sony's expensive PlayStation 5 Pro, which was released in November 2024, may not have moved the needle much in the UK. It's also worth noting that this was before the release of the Nintendo Switch 2, which launched in June 2025, months after the document's cut-off date.

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We've included the lengthy passage from the document because it's all quite relevant to what's happening in the games industry at large, and gives a rare look at the performance of an overseas market through the lens of a major player.

Ubisoft also talks about how game sales are being impacted by subscriptions and free-to-play, but that has been a trend for many years now, albeit Ubisoft is starting to feel the squeeze more and more through its successive fiscal year lineups.

Revenue growth is dependent on technological development, the Ubisoft group's release schedule, the successful launch of new titles and the release of additional content for back catalogue titles and the health of the UK software market. For the year to 31 March 2025, the company released Star Wars Outlaws, Assassin's Creed Shadows and Just Dance 2025, compared to in the prior year Assassin's Creed Mirage, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, The Crew Motorfest, Just Dance 2024, Prince of Persia The Lost Crown and Skull and Bones.

Fiscal year 2025 saw the overall UK physical sales market drop by around 35% as sales have continued to shift to more digital and subscription-based delivery.

Overall hardware sales in the UK market also declined by around 25% in FY25. This is mainly due to the maturing console cycle, with updates to existing consoles being offered, rather than any major new console launch.

Future developments Following the FY25 performance, FY26 is expected to see a slower rate of decline for physical software sales in the UK market.

The traditional 'full game' model of selling a single £50-£60 game to a consumer as a one-time purchase continues to become less ubiquitous, with Multi Game Subscription services, long running Games As A Service titles, Free To Play games and Cloud Streaming offerings all providing new and attractive ways for consumers to access gaming content.

Consumers are playing fewer games, playing them for longer, and as a result, outside of a few notable exceptions, many new games are struggling to stand out and achieve the sales they may once have had, whilst the market is more volatile and the potential for any specific title less predictable as a result.

As a result of a smaller physical new releases schedules in the coming year, Ubisoft Limited expects revenue to fall in FY26.