Considering the UK retail chart hasn’t amounted to much recently, it’s pleasing to see that physical releases can still ‘do the business’ in this digital age.
Pokémon Arceus: Legends is proving to be a colossal success, with some retailers sold out, and Curry’s claiming it to be their biggest ever pre-order of all time. The retailer had 9,000 advance orders and was expecting to sell a further 25k copies on launch day after dropping the price to £35. Â
More concrete proof of the game’s success comes from GI.biz, reporting that it’s the fourth biggest Pokémon launch of all-time in the UK and the fastest-selling Pokémon game where there’s just a single version available. This means it had a better first week than even 2000’s Pokémon Yellow.
Further crunching the numbers, GI.biz reveals Pok̩mon Arceus: Legends accounted for 50% of all boxed games sold last week. This amazing thing about this, is that there was a major new PS5 release too РUncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection had to settle for #5.
Maximum Games’ Rugby 22 took #33, meanwhile, managing to enter both the PS5 and Xbox One individual format charts at #10 and #5 (respectively.)
Back in the top ten, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, FIFA 22 and Animal Crossing: New Horizons each fell one position to occupy #2, #3 and #4.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild climbed from #9 to #6, Minecraft fell to #7, Call of Duty: Vanguard tumbled three places to #8, GTA V dropped to #9, and then at #10 it’s Just Dance 2022.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Extraction departed the top ten, going from #4 to #17.
Seemingly random Switch discounts at the likes of Tesco, Asda and Amazon continue to shake up the rest of the top 40, with Mario Party Superstars up from #39 to #12 and Super Mario Maker 2 – temporarily £22 at Amazon last week – back at #27.