As we move further into the games industry's busiest release period, it seems most new titles are going to struggle against an immovable top three. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, FIFA 19, and Assassin's Creed Odyssey have all held onto first, second, and third respectively. This is the second week at the top for Treyarch's multiplayer only shooter, which sees a week-on-week sales drop of just 39 per cent. Marvel's Spider-Man is also still performing well, and climbs back up to fourth place.
The best debut for a new release this week is for LEGO DC Super-Villains, coming in at number six, while SoulCalibur VI has to settle for eighth. Ubisoft's new toys to life game, Starlink: Battle for Atlas, crash lands into 14th, but it's possible things will pick up for the space exploration game with Christmas looming. It looks like this year's major hitters aren't going anywhere -- that is, until the mighty Red Dead Redemption 2 launches at the end of the week.
UK Sales Charts: Week Ending 20th October, 2018
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
- FIFA 19
- Assassin's Creed Odyssey
- Marvel's Spider-Man
- Forza Horizon 4
- LEGO DC Super-Villains
- Super Mario Party
- SoulCalibur VI
- Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider
[source ukie.org.uk, via gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 23
That’s a little disappointing for Soul Calibur, no?
@Th3solution, for a genre that isn't exactly at its peak right now, a fighting game debuting in the top ten is decently good, I think.
@Th3solution As always, mind that this is a chart for physical sales. Those skew numbers immensely. Kids games fare way better in those, for instance (because of gifts, and older people buying less digital), which helps explain why they are doing so good.
Digital sales are on a sharp rise everywhere. Last year there were reports of AAA games already nearing the 45% digital sales. Those numbers will only have grown in 2018, which make physical charts like these pretty much obsolete as a source of information on the video game industry as a whole.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey for instance sold 25% less physical sales then last year Origins, but I remember Ubisoft reporting that overall numbers were up.
I keep repeating those boring lines in these articles, but I will continue doing that to provide that important context. In my opinion Push Square should pretty much stop reporting on these from a point of journalistic integrity, or at least mention the fact these are not including digital sales in their articles. But hey, these articles get clicks, I know.
Soul caliber should have released in July. Its just over shadowed right now. I want it... but red dead.
@Th3solution
The series was dormant for a long time and fighting games aren't the most popular. Beyond that, it released one week before Red Dead Redemption 2. The timing was horrible.
That's it, I've got a new strategy; alright, listen Cerny, this is what we're going to do: Call of Duty: Knack Ops
@Kidfried That’s true. Which makes BlOps4 even more impressive because it is certainly making much more on digital sales, according to some of the articles we’ve seen.
Still, it’s fairly interesting to see the charts to get a general feel for what is selling in stores anyways. But you’re right, it is a little difficult to draw conclusions as to successes and failures.
That Soul Calibur placing makes me want to buy it even more, I don't want this series to die again.
@Cutmastavictory I loved the Bèta and i bought i will buy RDR2 when in its down on price. 😁
The first months of 2019 are booked and 2018 has other titles i want to get more. 😃
@Octane Well its sounds better then what stuff we get now with half stuff behind a paywall. And one thing is Black out will be laced with microtransactions before the year is over. 😋
It sucks for the new releases, but selfishly I’m looking forward to the Black Friday sales.
Publishers need to be more flexible with their release dates. It doesn’t help that they allow preorder to go live so early though- essentially locking them in.
I’m a bit fearful for Darksiders 3 though.
@Orpheus79V
I cant say it better then him. 😁
I heard the international servers of COD are terrible. Plus i watched the Angry Joe show they gave COD a 6 lot of paywalled content and a way to expensive game for the content. I dont understand the high rates. 😑
@Flaming_Kaiser Joe gave Cod IV a 7/10, the game new battle royale mode is really fun but not at $60 + $50 season pass, and there's no normal single player campaign.
@Th3solution I think most people buy fighting games digital since it's more convenient when you want to play just 2 or 3 match (no messing around with disc).
@wiiware
I agree fighting, online multiplayer, driving games. I can't imagine not buying digital anymore. I get some much more out of these types of games now that while playing my main games I can just do a few laps, fights or few rounds of shooting. It give the game so much more value for me.
@JoeBlogs Last year Madden sold 34% digital, while FIFA sold 25% digital and Forza Motorsport 21%, but Destiny 2 even sold around 50%. I think that's saying enough.
Obviously, any Soul Calibur game will always sell less than any Call of Duty game. But the fact that this chart shows that does not mean this chart is representative for the UK video game biz.
@JoeBlogs Sources:
"As you point out, with Destiny 2 digital at over 50% console sell-through so far, we believe we're seeing some acceleration in that digital shift." (Activision business call, https://seekingalpha.com/article/4119881-activision-blizzard-atvi-q3-2017-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single)
"The firm says that 25% of FIFA 18's sales have been digital after three weeks, whereas FIFA 17's number was just 16%. Madden's download share is also up 9% to 34% of total sales." (GamesIndustry.biz, https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-11-02-the-uk-console-game-sales-now-30-45-percent-digital)
As physical sales grow smaller and smaller, they will only become less representative of the actual sales of video games. These charts are only interesting for those who sell physical video games. They won't tell you anything about how well a game performs.
@gingerfrog The only genre that I buy physical (steelcase version) is 3rd person linear games like uncharted or jrpg like persona 5 / dragon quest 11, since usually I usually play it until the end and be done with it.
@JoeBlogs I'd agree with you four years ago, when digital accountd for a fraction of the sales. But now we're seeing some digital percentages double others, with some games selling digital 50%. And that difference has only grown bigger.
That means that for ever million physical copies you sell, you can have a total sales of somewhere between one million and even over the two million when accounting for digital sales in 2017. And that gap will only have grown in the last year. That's pretty clear from the fact that Odyssey sold 25% less than Origins last year physically.
So saying that these numbers are "likely" a good indicator is very far from the truth. They are worthless if you want to have any indication of how well a game performed.
You don't need to be the Economist, you don't even need more than one year of secondary school, to be able to see that.
@Cutmastavictory soul is great. I wasn't going to bother due to red dead but the pull was just too strong for me. I'm glad I buckled in the end.
@Kidfunkadelic83 I understand. Im going to get it. But after red dead, so will catch a black Friday digital sale which im certain it will be a part of.
@JoeBlogs If you visit this site for fun purely, I take it you would fully support if Sammy and co just made up a list of random games every week and told you it were the "UK video game sales"? Surely you must care about it to some extent too.
And I reply for a few simple reasons...
1. People do draw conclusions from this article. Like "That Soul Calibur placing makes me want to buy it even more, I don't want this series to die again." or "Soul caliber should have released in July. Its just over shadowed right now" or pick any comment.
So, I take it that a lot of people don't know that these numbers are not representative, while they are clearly interested in the topic of sales. I think they would care to hear if Soul Calibur is the 6th selling game in the UK or not. So, I try to contextualize that a bit.
2. I think the staff do care about quality journalism in some respect too. Sure, this is video games, not global economics, but I still think Stephen and co want to write articles that are representative of the topic they report on. That's why I think they should at least mention that these are physical sales only, that do not reflect actual sales.
@Cutmastavictory Yeah it won't take long before a sale hits. You will get the ultimate edition with dlc for the same price as the standard by Christmas I'd imagine.
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