Physical game sales on PS5 rose by 324% in the UK last week. According to GamesIndustry.biz, this in mostly thanks to the arrival of a lot more PlayStation 5 stock across the country. There was also the arrival of Hitman 3, of course, which unsurprisingly managed to claim the top spot in the sales charts.
When Hitman was released, its sales failed to meet the expectations of publisher Square Enix and they let the franchise go. For Hitman 3, IO Interactive decided to publish the digital version of the game but they still needed hep with the physical version. In the UK, those duties bizarrely fell to Square Enix once again. They shouldn’t be disappointed this time, though, as the game confidently claimed the top spot of the UK physical sales charts.
Of those sales, PS5 was the most dominant platform, contributing 49% of copies sold. PS4 accounted for 25% of those sales. In total, Hitman 3‘s launch sales were up 17% when compared to Hitman 2. While Hitman 3 is garnering a lot of positive attention, it’s worth remembering that it pretty much had the week to itself, being the first AAA release of the year. On the other hand, Hitman 2 released alongside Spyro: Reignited Trilogy and Fallout 76.
The release of more PlayStation 5 consoles saw an increase in sales in several other titles. In terms of console exclusives, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales saw a 161% increase in sales, pushing the title back into the top 10 at number 4. Demon’s Souls’ sales rose a massive 291% although it could only claim 27th spot in the charts. Other cross-platform titles saw a bump in sales too. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’s sales increased by 56% making it climb two places to number 5 in the charts, although we’re not certain how much of that was affected by PS5 stock. Meanwhile, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla saw a 174% increase in PS5 sales.
The PlayStation 5 being Sony’s biggest console launch ever. The console beat the Xbox Series X and even the Nintendo Switch in the UK charts for November. Despite this, there are still stock shortages across the world with many players still unable to secure themselves a console. Sony is working to increase stock availability when they can, and hopefully everybody will soon have the opportunity to join the latest generation of gaming.
[Source: GamesIndustry.biz]
