UK Charts: Strong second week for God of War as Nintendo Labo debuts at No.3 South Park: The Fractured But Whole re-enters the charts at No.18

Christopher Dring Head of Games B2B Monday 30th April 2018 Share this article Share

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God of War retains the No.1 position in the UK boxed charts.

It held onto the top spot after suffering just a 35% dip in sales week-on-week, which is a very impressive performance for a game in its second week. Particularly a single-player game aimed at a core audience.

As evidence of this, last week's No.3 title - Yakuza 6 - dropped 36 places this week to No.39 after a 85% sales drop week-on-week. Yakuza is, of course, a niche Japanese action title, and this sort of behaviour is quite typical of this kind of product.

Holding firm at No.2 is Far Cry 5, with Ubisoft's game continuing to perform above expectations for the publisher.

The new games in the charts this week belong to Nintendo, with its unique Labo project. The Nintendo Labo Variety Pack makes it to No.3, while the Robot pack slips in at No.20.

Neither pack really impressed with its week one sales, but then this isn't a typical week one product. Nintendo is targeting a mainstream audience with Labo and will be marketing this over a longer period of time. Expect it to be a major part of the firm's plans during the summer. For now, there's not a lot to conclude from its first week on shelves.

Labo - and the accompanying marketing - may have had some impact on hardware sales, at least based on how other Nintendo Switch titles performed. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sales rose 6% week-on-week, Super Mario Odyssey rose 17%, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild increased 6%, and Splatoon 2 units are up 8%.

Overall, Switch boxed game sales increased 61% week-on-week.

Finally on the subject of Switch, South Park: The Fractured But Whole arrived on the platform last week. There were some reports of shortages for the game, but nevertheless, its launch saw sales spike 848% week-on-week and it now sits at No.19 in the UK charts.

Elsewhere, price activity on Nier Automata sees that title return to the Top 40 at No.32. Call of Duty: WWII also bounces back into the Top Ten at No.7.

Here is the UKIE/GfK Top Ten for the week ending April 28th.