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The competition was fierce at retail in February and it’s Kingdom Hearts III which came up on top in the end. Square Enix’s hit, which is the fastest-selling Kingdom Hearts game in the franchise’s history, took the top spot of the monthly charts, comfortably ahead of Anthem. However, Kingdom Hearts III released very late in January, which means it had been on shelves for four weeks when GfK closed its report for the month, against only two days for Anthem.
Anthem sold 60.8 per cent less copies at launch than BioWare’s latest title, Mass Effect Andromeda, however Anthem is a new IP, making the comparison quite unfair. Looking at what the original Mass Effect sold back in 2007 paints a better picture, with Anthem sales for its first month being down only three per cent compared to Mass Effect’s Month One sales. Those three per cent have more than likely shifted to digital sales, however 2007 was a long time ago and both the market and BioWare have grown since, so we expected a bit more from Anthem.
Meanwhile, Ubisoft’s Far Cry New Dawn debuted at No.5, with sales for the spin off down 78.9 per cent compared to Month One sales for the latest fully fledged entry in the franchise, Far Cry 5. Comparing it to other spin off entry Far Cry Primal, New Dawn still performed below expectations, with sales down 57.8 per cent.
Deep Silver’s Metro Exodus in the meantime entered the February charts at No.7. While the title smashed records on its launch week compared to the previous instalments in the Metro series, it’s more on a par with its predecessors when it comes to Month One sales. It sold nine per cent less copies than 2010’s Metro 2033 did during its first month and six per cent less copies than 2014’s remastered collection Metro Redux (though it’s hard to make a direct comparison as that’s two games in one). However, launch sales were up 27 per cent compared to 2013’s Metro Last Light. So it’s overall a good performance at retail for Metro Exodus, especially taking the digital shift into account.
Other new entries in the monthly charts included Bandai Namco’s Jump Force at No.17 and Crackdown 3, which debuted at No.34. It’s quite a debacle for Microsoft, with Month One sales for the title down 92 per cent compared to Crackdown 2 (though to be fair the latter spent one more week on shelves before its monthly report closed back in 2010). Crackdown 3 also launched day-and-date on Xbox Game Pass so physical sales were always going to be down.
Further down the charts, Dreamworks Dragons: Dawn of New Riders entered the monthly listings at No.45 while Maximum Games’ Bendy and the Ink Machine debuted at No.47.
Here’s the Top Ten for the period between January 27th and February 23rd (data courtesy of GfK/Ukie:)
