Marvel’s Avengers Defeat Tony Hawk and NBA to Claim No. 1 | UK Charts

It’s a new Top Three on the UK physical sales charts this week, led by Square Enix’s ambitious new Avengers game at No. 1.

The Marvel title is developed by Tomb Raider’s Crystal Dynamics studio, and compared to the last game in the Tomb Raider series (Shadow of the Tomb Raider from September 2018, which only had a partial participation from Crystal Dynamics), this new game was sold almost exactly the same. number of physical copies at launch. In fact, Avengers sold 2% more boxed copies than Lara Croft’s latest game during its first week.

Compared to Marvel’s last great video game, Spider-Man for PS4 (which also released in September 2018), the numbers are radically different. The Avengers sold less than a third of what Spider-Man managed to make in the UK during its debut week (physical sales only).

This Avengers title features a great online multiplayer component and is therefore quite a different game than the single player adventures of Spider-Man and Tomb Raider. It also comes to the end of a generation of consoles and the beginning of a new one, and is intended to be a service-based title. Therefore, its success will not be decided in its first week, and will depend on how the game evolves from here and if Crystal Dynamics can continue to attract (and monetize) a large audience for months and years.

At number 2 is Activision’s latest gamble to monetize their previous catalog: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2. The remastered game has been reviewed very well, especially compared to the latest game in the series: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. 5 of 2015. As a result, the first week box sales of this new game are 448% higher than its disappointing predecessor. Clearly, there is still some life in the skating franchise.

Rounding out the new Top Three is NBA 2K21. The game hasn’t had the best start in physical sales, with week one sales down 37% compared to NBA 2K20. Of course, it should be noted that digital sales are not included in these charts.

There isn’t much else to talk about. Animal Crossing: New Horizons drops to # 4 to make way for new releases. Meanwhile, pricing activity in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Game of the Year Edition sees the CD Projekt RPG return to the charts at number 11, with a sales increase of 237%.

Overall, UK video game box sales were up 37% this week compared to the previous week.

Here’s GfK’s Top Ten for the week ending September 5