Lies of P, the unusual Souls-like action RPG, has made a strong debut on the UK's boxed games chart. The game's Pinocchio-meets-Bloodborne premise had always seemed strange, but it's clearly struck a chord, as it's arrived at number three in the bestsellers in its launch week. Less surprising is a number one debut for Mortal Kombat 1. Both titles sold the vast majority of their physical copies on PS5.
PAYDAY 3 is another new release within the top 10, arriving in seventh place. It's outsold by Cyberpunk 2077, which has made a big resurgence following the arrival of update 2.0 and the Phantom Liberty DLC. It's moved from 21st to sixth. Elsewhere, Hogwarts Legacy is in second, replacing The Crew Motorfest, which has dropped to number 11.
Here's the latest top 10 in full (physical sales only).
UK Sales Charts: Week Ending 23rd September, 2023
- Mortal Kombat 1
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Lies of P
- Pikmin 1 + 2
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
- Cyberpunk 2077
- PAYDAY 3
- Grand Theft Auto V
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Minecraft (Switch)
Comments 52
Cyberpunk is back hell yeah
Is there a split between Playstation and Xbox for Lies of P? It had to be the Playstation Nation to bring this game to the top 3.
Mortal Kombat 1 being number is a sureshot.
Plus, Starfield already out of the top ten? Crazy for "tHe GaMe Of ThE gEnErAtIoN"
Judging by the critical reception of both the 2.0 update and its Phantom Liberty DLC, Cyberpunk 2077 is deserving of that fifteen place jump to sixth.
@JAMes-BroWWWn Starfield sort of fizzled fast... 20 days after release it moved to the background and is basically dropped out of all conversations. Additionally, I've read somewhere that after 15 days, 25% of players haven't even played until you fly off the first planet (around 45 mins assuming you don't overcomplicate character creation). So yeah, not great.
Would love to know how much Hogwarts Legacy sold so far. 30million by the end of the year?
What an incredible success. Probably had WB think twice about selling off its games division.
For a game that released digitally 3 months ago, Pikmin 1+2 getting 4th in the physical charts is impressive.
I'm still deep in baldur's gate (who knew acts 1 and 2 are basically prologues for the behemoth of content that is act 3??? mental game) but I cannot wait for phantom liberty, and then lies of p. I dropped Genshin at last after realising I have become well and truly fatigued with the whole thing, and it's freed up so much of my time I literally cannot figure out why I didn't drop it before. Sunk cost fallacy, I think.
@starnivore "who knew acts 1 and 2 are basically prologues for the behemoth of content that is act 3??"
Don't tell me this 😩 I already have no life because of this game. I'm right at the end of act 2 and oooh boy is it good. Probably the best RPG I've played and that's no easy feat.
@JAMes-BroWWWn
they went from "the game of the generation" to "this game is better than bloodborne" really quick LOL
@Cikajovazmaj @GymratAmarillo @JAMes-BroWWWn
1) British physical sales charts are meaningless. So few people buy physical, and some games just sell more digital or physical based on its player base, which makes this chart an impossible measure for success.
I'm here in this news article every week to tell people the same thing: there is no relation between tis chart and a game's success in said country.
2) More importantly for your case: Starfield is a Game Pass game. Sales will never be as high as Mortal Kombat, because most players get it for free. Also it's on PC too... which don't do physical sales. Ever wondered why all these PlayStation PC ports don't end up on this list, but Sony keeps making them. They do fine sales wise, but this chart is not tracking them.
Who is buying the MK8? I thought I was the last one 😁
I'm just here for the weekly Mario Kart 8 sales and how did it fare compared to the more recent games, lol.
@Loamy me too! I can't fathom how people are finishing it and jumping right back in for another playthrough, though. It's a marathon of a game.
@PixelDragon This guy understands.
I hope Lies of P manages to stay high in the list.
It's amazing. The devs have also said they'd be interested in doing a Wizard of Oz game which I'd love to see 😭😍
Lies of P is kicking my butt but it is so much better than I would have thought. I have a soft spot for Steelrising but imo Lies of P is the most polished Soulslike game to date.
"Both titles sold the vast majority of their physical copies on PS5."
Where does one find this information?
@Cherip-the-Ripper
That would be so cool!
Not related to this week's charts but still relevant to the topic of UK sales. I noticed that there's another big discount for the disc PS5. £50 off (£429.99) for the disc PS5 with free EA Sports FC 24 included. I checked and it's present at GAME, Amazon, Smyths, Argos and Currys so I'm guessing it's a country-wide discount like the previous 2 big PS5 discounts.
@2here2there I think if you buy a new Switch, you just buy MK8D to go along with it….
FWIW, I know many people, including myself, who are still having a blast with Starfield. But surely commenters on a PlayStation site know best.
Splitting my time between it and BG3 on my PS5. Great times for RPG fans!
@awp69 I know many multiplatform gamers, myself included (PS5, PC, Switch), who dropped Starfield pretty quick due to being underwhelmed. More than those who have stuck with it. Of course it's all annecdotal though.
However, you can't hide the drop-off of player numbers. Its a big issue with Game Pass releases sadly. You can never trust the initial figures like playercount to give an accurate picture of success as people are using the 'free' offering as a demo.
Personally I felt my time was much better committed to BG3 and Armored Core at that point. As a huge fan of TES and Fallout, Starfield was very underwhelming for me
PSN Digital top 10 UK minus free games (which is only Fortnite this week)
FC24
Mk1
COD
NBA
PAYDAY
Lies of P
Baldur's Gate 3
Spider-Man 2 Pre orders
The Crew Motorfest
It's hard to break into the UK top 3 when new sports and shooting games are out, but 6 ain't bad for a soulslike. BG3 still popular, of course.
Fight the Chaviness of the UK top ten, go and buy some RPGs everyone 😁😁😁
(And cover for the fact I'm about to buy FC24 this week and hate myself some more for it haha)
@Cikajovazmaj Starfield also dropped off on its metacritic, went from 87 to 84, was 83 a couple of days ago.
Never mind "game of the generation", it won't even be in the top 10 highest rated games this year.
@dschons i really enjoyed steel rising but lies of p is in another class. Awesome game and i'm glad it has turned out so well.
@Loamy I was really enjoying starfield but the more im playing the more issues I'm coming across,framerate problems ,broken quests ,heads missing on companions,same buildings repeating themselves that much i don't know whether I've been there or not ,the more skills I have its like the game cant keep up,its gone from a solid 8 to a 6.5 ,shame because It was one of my favourite games this year.
Lies of P is fantastic. It got me to stop playing Armored Core, which for me is really saying something. Really happy to see it doing well, and congrats to the developers.
@Loamy Agree completely. I fell asleep playing Starfield multiple times. That’s not a good sign. I blamed myself and being tired, but I get a shot of energy when I boot up MK1. The problem, I believe, with Starfield is the galactic aspect of it, the space travel, the multiple barren planets, the fact that populated planets essentially function as tiny cities, etc. The game has a lot going for it and the main quest and side quests are largely fine. I’d argue better than base Cyberpunk, to give a contemporary reference, and better than Fallout 4, to give a reference to Bethesda’s own output. However, the exploration aspect is, sad to say, largely boring and it’s not helped by how much fast travel is needed in the game… especially when it’s multi-step fast travel. I really wanted to like it and I’m glad there are people that do, but, for me, there’s just things that I didn’t enjoy with it. I am genuinely curious how many year end lists Starfield will be on.
With all the patter coming from Phil Spencer, I would have thought StarField would still be in the physical chart for the next couple of years. I tried it for a couple of hours myself and couldn’t really get into it Personally at all. On topic it’s great to see Lies of P in the top 3, it’s an awesome game so far!
@Cikajovazmaj I think I'm that 25%. I only downloaded it to see how it is. I stopped playing after going into space first time. After shooting whatever was chasing me.
It's not my type of game, that's why I'm not playing it. Just wanted to see what it's like. I did the same with cyberpunk too, but I bought that game.
N.i.c.e. lies of p is a incredible game.and grand theft auto 5 is still the 🐐 👑 g.o.a.t.word up son
@PixelDragon I've been saying this for ages, they need to provide more meaningful data if engagement is their metric. 10 million players downloaded the game and loaded it up. Other than that we have no meaningful data on how long people actually played it for.
@JAMes-BroWWWn
Lies of Pi is on Game Pass since Day 1. It makes sense that is the PlayStation version the one that sells more.
Same with Starfield which wasn't my cup of tea to be honest.
So yeah. When people can play a game without spending $70 usually that people (vast majority of) doesn't spend those $70.
@tallythwack
...soooo....a Bethesda game.
@CutchuSlow actually, you are among 75% as the trophy this was tracked by is received as soon as you take off (before shooting).
Would be cool to get how many people stuck with it after first 5 hours or so.
@Kidfried I come here every week to see you reminder people of how pointless a reminder this is of success and people ignore it and carry on with their own versions of the truth.
Except for Mario Kart 8.
@Kidfried they're not meaningless. They don't provide the full picture, but they're most certainly not meaningless. Meaningless would be reporting how much x game sold in our village or something.
"Ever wondered why all these PlayStation PC ports don't end up on this list, but Sony keeps making them. They do fine sales wise, but this chart is not tracking them"
Do they? Data suggests that plenty of them have done far from fine.
@Kidfried I agree that UK box charts aren't an entirely reliable source for how well a game is doing but I disagree that "few people" buy Physical games. Of course more people buy Digital these days but those articles that spout nonsense like "99% of game sales are digital" include sales of DLC, Digital only Indie Games and Mobile purchases which also renders those articles mostly redundant when comparing Digital vs Physical sales.
I would guess that Digital to Physical if we're talking games that actually release physically is more of like a 70-30 split in favour of Digital. This is a guess as I'm not sure of the actual numbers but it's definitely not 99-1 anyway as people like to spread around.
@awp69 anecdotal evidence is great. Personally, I prefer hard numbers to look at the better picture.
@JAMes-BroWWWn
Not really, since no one actually bought it.
@Cloud39472 The point is not that they're meaningless, in that thes sales numbers are totally insignificant. But they are meaningless to try and draw conclusions from on how a game is performing in the UK.
Especially if we're talking about games released on PC as well. Over 7/10 console game sales are digital. Pretty much all PC game sales are digital.
@naruball They're meaningless to try and draw conclusions from. The demography of the people that buy phyiscal games can very much differ from those that buy digital games. Ergo: a game might do very well physically speaking, but very badly digital. And you wouldn't be able to tell from this chart.
A good example is Nintendo. Just read this article: https://www.nintendolife.com/features/talking-point-nintendos-mastery-of-physical-game-sales-hides-limited-digital-growth
It pretty much explains why Nintendo always looks like it is dominating in the UK. In reality, the number of people buying Nintendo games digitally (40+%) is way lower than people buying Xbox/PlayStation games digitally (70+%). So it might look like Pikmin 4 is doing pretty well, but it might not do well in reality.
Then about PC ports. I mean, the fact that they may underperform based on Sony's expectations beforehand, doesn't mean that they don't sell a lot, or that Sony doesn't make a good profit from them. What I mean to say is that we're saying old games like GTA and such keep charting on here, but that's also because some games aren't charted at all, which would have a decent shot at making Top 10 is all I'm saying.
@Rudy_Manchego It just bothers me to no end!
Article about Lies of P doing well. Half the comments are about Starfield. That game seems to be living rent free inside some of your heads.
I've just done the second boss on Lie of P. I'm very impressed with it so far. As someone who thought the open world aspect of Elden Ring was a step-back from the more linear levels of the Dark Souls games, I'm really enjoying it.
Removed - trolling/baiting
@JAMes-BroWWWn lies of p is day 1 on gamepass so I imagine the probably relatively small amount of physical sales are down to PlayStation more then xbox
@PixelDragon xbox sales went up by 76% week on week when it came out 🤷
Maybe it's just me but, do these charts really mean anything? GTAV, Mario Kart 8, Pikmin 1 and 2, Minecraft? Are there, like, 30 games total in the charts or something?
Lies is P is shaping up to be a GOTY winner for me. Stunned this is the studios debut.
@Kidfried I know and they are like tea leaves or tarot cards. People see what they want to see. Be it pro-Sony, MS or Nintendo.
In the UK, the only real place you can even buy new video games are a couple of nationwide stores and online. I'm a fan of physial games and even I've only bought a handful this year. You make a great point about Nintendo - their first party line up is often far cheaper physical and they are often bought for younger fans by parents who want a physical gift.
@JAMes-BroWWWn
Lies of P and Starfield are on Game Pass (both PC and Series S/X). So obviously a lot of people playing those two games on PC and Xbox didn’t buy them outright, but have played through Game Pass.. Starfield STILL seems to have been selling really well. And for the record, the game is fantastic. Played around 60 hours so far, i and I’ll keep going (when i can wrestle myself from the PS5 that is).
@Sequel I agree. It’s actually fantastic! And damn fine graphics!
@Kidfried "It pretty much explains why Nintendo always looks like it is dominating in the UK. In reality, the number of people buying Nintendo games digitally (40+%) is way lower than people buying Xbox/PlayStation games digitally (70+%). So it might look like Pikmin 4 is doing pretty well, but it might not do well in reality."
Yeah, I get that. I've actually pointed out the same thing in the past. My point is that it's not meaningless because a lost of people still buy physical. It's not like it's currently 99% digital 1% physical. You can still get a rough idea how certain games are performing. So it's somewhat useful. Definitely not meaningless.
@naruball Any rough idea you get from it could be totally wrong, though, because there could be a discrepancy between digital and physical. Especially because this list doesn't show any numbers.
"Starfield fizzled fast"
They don't know. Maybe it's selling like hotcakes digitally. Or maybe its numbers didn't go down, but only the other numbers went up by more. Game could theoretically even have sold more this week than previous week. We don't know.
"For a game that released digitally 3 months ago, Pikmin 1+2 getting 4th in the physical charts is impressive"
Is it? Or was it a slow week? And how were those digital sales? Maybe everyone was waiting for physical and nobody bought digital.
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