FIFA 21 Sales: EA’s Game Tops October Chart for Physical and Digital Copies
In the month of October, no game outsold EA’s FIFA 21. The international football simulation title reportedly topped the charts for both digital and physical. While EA’s FIFA 21 sales were down compared to those for FIFA 20, this may be due to it being a “console transition year.” There are next-generation upgrades for the game on the way which could be part of the story.
FIFA 21 sales top charts in latest report
A report via GamesIndustry.biz gives the details for the latest EMEAA Game Sales Data (GSD). The EMEAA includes sales for Europe, the Middle East, parts of Asia, and Africa. For the month of October, FIFA 21 sales led the way for digital and physical copies combined.
Coming in second was EA’s Star Wars: Squadrons, with Crash Bandicoot 4 (Activision Blizzard) at third. Watch Dogs: Legion (Ubisoft) and Grand Theft Auto 5 (Take-Two) rounded out the top five.
The FIFA 21 game currently holds a 72 out of 100 score for PlayStation 4 at Metacritic based on 57 Critics reviews. However, it holds just an 0.8 User Score out of 10 (from over 1,000 ratings). For the Xbox One, the game has a slightly better score of 77 out of 100 based on 18 critics reviews, and just a 1.1 User score from 230 ratings.
It’s believed a lot of FIFA’s low user scores may come from review bombing based on frustrations over various aspects of the game. Some may feel the game isn’t much of an upgrade from FIFA 20 or dislike glitches they’ve encountered. It remains to be seen if the game’s next-generation upgrades will get higher user scores.
Video games in ‘console transition year’
It’s noted that the FIFA 21 sales for digital and physical were down due to it being a console transition year. The arrival of the next-generation Microsoft Xbox X/S and Sony PlayStation 5 consoles both arrived this week. It’s believed that many consumers may have held off buying games for the current-gen consoles (Xbox One and PS4) in favor of waiting to get a copy of the next-gen game.
That said, EA’s FIFA 21 and Madden 21 games both offer gamers who buy current-gen copies of the games the ability to upgrade to next-gen copies for free. Under the Dual Entitlement program, gamers can perform the upgrade for the same brand console. So gamers can get a free upgrade of PlayStation 4 game to PS5, or Xbox One game to Xbox Series X/S.
Some gamers may be waiting for FIFA 22 to officially release for the next-gen consoles next year. However, there could be those waiting and purchasing a copy of the game with their new consoles in 2020. So more FIFA 21 sales will be part of the sales figures for December. Both EA’s FIFA 21 and Madden 21 have a next-gen release date of December 4, 2020.
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