
We’re in the middle of a pandemic, a month away from the PlayStation 5, in a climate where more and more players are selecting digital software – but despite all of that, Activision will surely be disappointed with Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’s opening UK physical sales. To be fair, the title did top the charts – but that’s despite registering an 80 per cent decline compared to Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, which only launched on one platform.
This could be a wake-up call for publishers looking to push higher prices: the game costs upwards of £54.99 at retail, and while we don’t have access to digital numbers, it’s hard to imagine fans turned out in droves to purchase the game for £59.99 from the PlayStation Store. Of course, this is just physical British sales data, and it’s perfectly plausible that the title may have had greater success in other countries. It sold 82 per cent of its units on Sony’s hardware.
All that said, it narrowly beat out Star Wars Squadrons, which debuted in second place on the UK software charts. Again, the game registered 72 per cent less sales than Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, although it received a much smaller marketing campaign. Untitled Goose Game was the only other new physical release of the week, and that entered the charts in 34th position. Coronavirus is undoubtedly having an impact – but it does make you wonder how those new £69.99 price points are going to fare, doesn’t it?
UK Sales Charts: Week Ending 4th October 2020
- Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
- Star Wars Squadrons
- Super Mario 3D All-Stars
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- Marvel's Avengers
- Mario Kart 8: Deluxe
- Minecraft Dungeons
- Minecraft: Switch Edition
- Mafia: Definitive Edition
- Mafia Trilogy
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 71
Where's GTA V?! I'm flabbergasted!
£35 digital would have been an instant purchase, £59.99 takes the absolute piss.
Higher price point and releasing in a busier timeframe. Not surprising.
Do we think it sold 82% on Sony’s console because of the Crash history, or because MS players don’t need to buy anything but the biggest games (like Cyberpunk) due to Gamepass? I can’t see series x being too attractive to third party publishers who don’t want to have their games on that sub service.
Tbh digital cost me less with buying psn credit, around the 50 mark. Which I think is a fine price for a new game, never understood why the outrage for this being full price. It's a new, full size crash game, it seems platformers don't have "the right" to be full price according to some people for some odd reason. Except if it's mario Odyssey of course, and then no one bats an eyelid.
@thefourfoldroot It's definitely the marketing background in my opinion.
I bought the Star Wars one, digitally though.
The price of the game is too high for what it is, It should have been priced the same as how Rachet & Clank PS4 was priced.
Maybe it would of been more successful if the demo was playable to everyone and not just the guys that preordered it?just saying.
Activision were stupid to think people would buy Crash at £60 when the remasters were more like £32. Many more games will suffer in day one sales if companies don't start lowering their prices.
@thefourfoldroot Don't forget there's also a lot more PS4s out there than Xbox ones. And the marketing as well to a degree, as mentioned.
@get2sammyb
Oh, was it marketed as a PlayStation game mainly?
@DrClayman
Sure, but that would only account for about half the difference witnessed here. 82% just sounded like a huge number.
And people will also be looking at next month with new consoles on the market...
It's just a bit much for a new Crash game for a lot of people. When the trilogy was £30 for 3 games, and this new one is only a couple hours longer than each of those games (based on howlongtobeat) for double the cost, it's a bit much, even if it's all new and not remade.
I also think people were a little wary. Even with the remakes being good, Activision hadn't proved they could make a good new Crash/Spyro, so it could be a gamble for people; reviews suggest it's excellent though, so I can see it having legs as people realise it's a quality time.
As for me, I personally would've bought it had it not been for the fact that the PS5 is impending within the next few weeks, so I've been saving as much as I can for that. I'm likely not the only one either.
Busy game season, leading up to the Christmas period. Highly priced at a time when PS5/Series X is just around the corner, with no news of an upgrade path. Black friday/prime day imminent. All possible reasons why this might not have sold as well. There also isnt the nostalgia factor that the trilogy had.
This will do fine as we get closer to Christmas
The price of £54.99 probably didn't help. I reluctantly paid it, but I can imagine a lot of people will just wait for it to go on sale. On the other hand, people didn't have any qualms about paying £34.99 for 3 in 1.
@thefourfoldroot The majority of XB1 owners don't have Game Pass. There's 15 millions subs and over 50 million consoles sold. That means at least 70% of them don't sub.
I think you're right about the Sony history and also there's just more people with PS4s.
Its sad people don't appreciate physical games anymore.
What do they expect? Publishers are asking for a stupid amounts of money for games now as the prices creep up. No matter how much they want them to go over £45-50 there's simply a threshold for how much a piece of entertainment like this is worth to people.
One you start going over that £60 mark people will just switch off completely. I've given in for the first time and pre-ordered Demon's Souls for £65 and it just feels wrong, dirty and manipulative. No matter which way you look at it, if your customers come away feeling like that after buying your product instead of feeling excited and happy it won't last long. This is a personal goat too. It will certainly be interesting to see how long it takes for prices to come down again, if at all.
I'm waiting for a sale myself, i will only pay the price Activision are asking if i know i'm going to spend insane amount of hours on it, i love Crash but Crash isn't a £60 series. Sadly Activision won't see the price point being an issue and instead will think people don't want Crash.
Like others have mentioned it cost way too much, i bought TLOU2 at launch for less than what theyre selling this game for.
Unfortunately its now on my wait till sale list.
I want there to be a Crash Bandicoot 5 so I hope North American sales are better and that the title picks up steam world wide with a price drop. I do think $60 was a miscalculation and I'm going to be interested to see what Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, eventhough it looks awesome and a true next-gen experience, does at $70+. These are platformers and outside of the Mario games, it's tough to sell them at a premium price these days. I went to Gamestop day one to buy this game and don't regret it but no doubt most people look at it and see a budget title. Budget pricing is what helped Ratchet & Clank 2016 and I'm surprised Activision didn't go a little lower. Ideal price would've been $40-$45 but if Activision didn't want to go that low, $50 is still a little bit of a savings.
I get why people don't like the $60 price tag Crash 4 carries but it's still a 15 hour game. I mean, there's a lot of games that last that long and people will gladly pay $80 for a special edition copy.
Sure the N. Sane Trilogy, Reignited Trilogy and CTR NF were priced lower but at the end of the day they're still remakes, just like other remakes with similar price ranges. I mean, people are pre-ordering the Demon's Souls Remake in droves and that's $70 for a single player, single game in the package release.
I could go on and make comparisons until the cows come home, but in the end it's a brand new release for an IP so I understand the $60 price tag.
If you think that £60 and $60 is expensive, it's €70 in EU! No wonder sales have plummeted, possibly everywhere. It makes me wonder how PS5 will perform commercially.
@Makina I'm a big fan of physical media but there is no incentive to buy physical anymore (except in rare exceptions), so most of my PS4 collection is digital (and I have hundreds of PS2 and PS3 physical games).
I mean, there are no manuals anymore, the cases are made with extra cheap plastic and you need to install the disc but you still need the disc so basically PS4 blurays are just very expensive drm now.
The only incentive nowadays is that you still can find used games at cheaper price than digital sometimes.
@Old-Red I totally agree.
@Deadlyblack It’s not even the fact that it’s full price really, but that in the UK (and Europe) it’s significantly more expensive than juggernaut games like The Last of Us and Cyberpunk.
I love Crash, but even I’m waiting for a discount.
@Turbodream I remember when the 3DS game boxes ditched the manuals and introduced perforated plastic... Next generation I'll be 100% digital but waiting for sales.
@Deadlyblack I 100% agree with you. It's preposterous that people pay 60 usd for what is basically an annual sport update (fifa, madden, nhl current year) or 60 usd for the same yearly basic crap (every year cod / battlefield) or paying full price for the same game ported multiple times on other systems (Skyrim, Nintendo many many times) while they criticize the first non spinoff new game in over a decade for a classic and beloved franchise.
I paid 80 canadian bucks and the game deserved it.
Also, the game is only 15 hours if you are really good at platformers and if you don't go for 100%. I'm easily going to quintuple that amount going for 106% and the plat.
I wonder if there will be a next-gen version (I assume so) and if it will be a free upgrade.
@get2sammyb How are those games cheaper? Did Activision mess with the exchange rate?
I mean in Canada, TLOU2 was 80$ new (the equivalent of 60 us dollars) like every AAA new release.
@get2sammyb @Turbodream Cyberpunk costs the same, £60, $60, €70.
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP4497-CUSA16596_00-0000000000000004
£55 is a bit much.
£70 next gen during the worst recession of our lifetimes amongst a pandemic is insane.
@BlueOcean I remember it too. I was pretty disapointed by it when I found out. It made me look for DS games to collect instead. It is also a nightmare for my PS3 collection. I have to watch unboxing videos to know if my PS3 games are missing something (manual, instruction booklet, promo card for others games, downloadable codes... I mean most of it was just crap, but I like having CIB, you know. Also, I don't recommend paying 5 to 10$ each for very thin ps3 manuals either like I did lol.
I know of at least one game, the Legend of Legacy, that have a clever use of the perforated plastic. They printed small portraits on the back of the cover so every hole is filled by a beautiful character portrait artwork.
@get2sammyb Yeah, I'm just looking at the situation with USD. I get why you guys are a lot more stickler with the game being full priced due to games being higher priced in general in the UK and Europe.
Edit: I can't forget about the peeps up in Canada either. They're paying much higher price for new games as well.
I feel genuinely sorry for everyone that sees games being priced higher and higher every year.
@Wazeddie22 Tony Hawks did the same thing, a confusing trend. I remember the days of demo discs with magazines that gave you a couple hours content! Those were the days. Now, most games rely on YouTube and the demos are starting to require purchase of the full game.
More expensive games will only make people wait for the discount, or only buy big open world games. Also crash trilogy is a really good value at $40 for 3 games, and there's the nostalgia factor.
It's one of my favourite series yet I haven't bought it either.
It looks like a lot of work has gone into this game, I just don't want to pay £50+ for it right now..
We did it guys. We got GTA V out of the top 10 lol. Well if this is physical only I don't think it's too much of a concern cause most people will buy digital to avoid going to a store.
I think the vast majority of fans are waiting for a sale 🤷♂️ I will definitely buy it for $39.
$59 feels way to high for what the game is offering.... hopefully by the time the PS5 releases next month I can grab this.
No GTA in the top 10? This is a wonderful day indeed, also that last 6.. That's a lot of M's
I think most sensible people will wait for the price to drop. When PS4 games regularly drop to £20 or less within a year I still get amazed at all the people that pay full price.
Price point is far too high, you can't sell 3 Crash games for £35 then expect people to buy the next entry alone for £60, it doesn't represent value and even more so when games like Cyberpunk are £50. Then of course you have those saving for next gen and its just not the best timing coming straight after Mario for those with both
I hardly ever buy games day one. I normally wait a month or two. I'll be watching what ps5 game prices do over the months before I buy one.
@thefourfoldroot Sony has a much higher market share in Europe so I'm not too surprised. I would be curious to see what the numbers look like in the US where it's a lot closer to 50/50. Strangely enough I would have gotten this on Xbox as i do with most third party games but i decided not to pick it up until a sale with all the money I'm spending on next gen. Game looks good though.
@get2sammyb I got it on PS4 purely because it’s where Crash Bandicoot belongs, it’s square to spin and X to jump. How it should be!
Everyone's going mad over the price increase.... but I paid £60 in the UK for Street Fighter 2 turbo on the SNES in the early 90s.... cause it was the first 64mb cartridge! (All other SNES cartridges were 32mb)
Don't see the big deal
I’d expect more and more people to turn to joining a game rental service if games are going to priced over £60 on PS5 and Series X. I’m currently playing Crash 4 that I’ve rented and it’s a good game from what I’ve played so far but no way would I pay more than £25 for it.
As for GTA V I’ll bet it’s back in the charts every week once it’s had the next-gen update on the new consoles.
@Turbodream yeah I bought TLOU2 on pre-order digitally and that was £54.99 for a Sony first party game, which I then used discounted PSN credit to get for £47, the same as a physical copy in stores. Crash 4 was £59.99 on the digital store, there's no way I would pay that much for it, or any game really. It's not about me not valuing platformers or that this shouldn't be a full price title, I just don't buy any games at £60!
Bigger news is GTA has gone.
@Matroska they don't release the information on that stuff so how do you know
@Beefy01 into today's money that's over a 100
You got ripped off
Doesn't mean we have to aswell 👍
Having played roughly 6 hours I can confirm that the game is well worth the price tag it carries with it.
Its not 'more of the same', they really took it to the next level. Based on the original games (even some old sounds are there).
Its really really well made.
I would pay 70$ for this over Last of Us 2 ANY DAY (which was essentially ND taking a crap on his fans). In fact i'm glad i never bought it. just borrowed it from a friend who doesn't even want it any more, so he sold it.
This being full price, I just don't see the appeal. It's not on the scale of something like Mario Odyssey to me.
@Trotterwatch 60 quid for a glorified cartoon platform game Erm no thanks, I'd finish that in about two days, games like these are worth 34.99 at best. Unless ur getting around 100 hours gameplay then buy no meens are games worth 50/60 quid. It's time people stood up against consumerism. Especially the loyal customer whom I've bn since day one. Always bought physical and digital always paid my psn account each year. And yet get games I've already paid for through ***** monthly deals that meen nothing to people who pay full price on release. Psn needs to give its customers free choice of a game that they don't have for same value as said two free games. I'ts time to give people what they deserve and to stop paying ridiculous insane amounts for games that are mostly half baked anyways.this is why I opted ps5 digital. No point buying physical, just to get the same game later down the line free. Atleast Microsoft have a good job with games pass. Something Sony should of done along time ago with exclusives. Just think a game pass with all exclusives would set Microsoft back big time. Sony start pulling those fingers out ur ass and give ur loyal customers something worth having. ✌️
It also just occurred to me how pointless it is comparing physical sales pre and post COVID restrictions...
@get2sammyb
I think maybe you should mention the COVID restrictions in the U.K. making physical sales less likely. People don’t go out as much snd so are more likely to buy digital.
I would've gotten it had it come to Switch or PC. I've moved on from both ps4 and xbox.
It could be that people heard how difficult it was as well and decided not to bother. That's one of the reasons I didn't opt for it. I want to have fun, not a broken controller.
@Wazeddie22 yeah, i never understood that strategy. Demos should be used to convince people to buy the game, and not as an incentive for people who already pre-ordered it. Always strange to see a game company do that...
@Metalpug79 @Jayofmaya Yeah exactly,I used to buy magazines with demos...really used to look forward them.There was usually at least one game id like so much id end up buying.
The whole situation is stupid and confusing.Surely the people that had already preordered it would just wait for the full game.The whole point of a demo is to convince people to buy it.lol
This will drop like a stone soon I will play this when its 25 pounds and with all the Christmas deals soon far too much for a crash game
@Beefy01
So true but cartridge games were more to produce but this brings back memories. My wife payed 70 pounds for mine back then too
@Latex
Oh absolutely, they were expensive to produce.... bit games are today, hundreds of people working for years..... just saying that prices haven't really changed in almost 30 years
@SaltlakeCity it was a bleeding edge console game back then, effectively bring the arcade into the home.... i dont feel I was ripped off, I played that game for years 😊
Publishers got greedy, they think because lockdowns we have no option but to buy overpriced games. I guess the market will verify this strategy.
Why do these stories keep being a thing? We are living through a global pandemic people, of course people are buying more digital games than ever before they don’t want to go outside.
I thought the graphics looked too cartoon-y, but was still interested. Then I noticed it was $60 for a 20GB game. Then I realized the Demo was restricted. Then I heard it was free on GamePass, so they have to make up for that by apparently overcharging Sony players. I'll wait for a big sale, Thank you...
@GamerDad66 you seriously think an Activision game would be on GamePass? let alone a day 1 release?
My bad, I must have confused an article on `Coming to Xbox` with `Coming to Gamepass`on PureXbox site.
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