UK God of War launch is the biggest in the series history Same for the new Yakuza, too

Christopher Dring Head of Games B2B Sunday 22nd April 2018 Share this article Share

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God of War on PS4 is the fastest selling title in the franchise' history (boxed sales only).

It has sold over 35% more physical units in its first week than the previous best, 2010's God of War III.

And it has already overtaken the previous major Sony exclusive this year - Shadow of the Colossus.

The result is that the game is easily this week's No.1 (matching the success of God of War II and III), knocking Far Cry 5 down to No.2. Ubisoft's game had been No.1 for three weeks solid, and remains the biggest launch of the year so far. Of course, Far Cry 5 is available on two platforms - PS4 and Xbox One.

God of War's success in the UK is despite it being absent on the Amazon UK store pre-launch. The data here does not include digital sales of the game.

It isn't the only success this week. The new Yakuza title - Yakuza 6: Song of Life - arrived on PS4 and debuts at No.3. It is the biggest launch for a Yakuza game yet. It beat the previous best - 2017's Yakuza Kiwami - by 300 units.

The two new titles helped lift the market this week, with almost 250,000 games sold over the last seven days. However, it doesn't take much to get into the physical charts at the moment. Fewer than 1,000 games sold will guarantee you a place in the charts, with even Mario Kart 7 finding its way back into the Top 40 at No.40.

There are six exclusive games in the Top Ten this week - the two aforementioned PS4 games, Mario Kart 8 (No.5), Super Mario Odyssey (No.6) and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (No.9) on Switch, and PlayerUnknown: Battlegrounds (No.8) on Xbox One.

Sea of Thieves, another Xbox One exclusive, sits at No.11.

Here is the UKIE/GfK Top Ten for the week ending April 21st.