Animal Crossing: New Horizons see sales surge in UK Chart

After dipping down to the second place, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has now moved back up to be the best-selling game at retail in the UK last week. Week-on-week the game saw a surge in sales of 135 percent.

The increase in sales of Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been attributed to more availability of Switch hardware stock.

FIFA 20, which was in the top spot last week, has slipped down to third place this week. This could have something to do with EA’s confirmation of new releases in all of their sports franchises this year.

With no new releases making it into the top 40 best-selling games chart in the UK, the rest of the chart looks similar to how it always does. Interestingly, Grand Theft Auto 5 saw a boost to sales of 47 percent week-on-week, pushing it to second place in the chart.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake has fallen out of the top ten this week, currently sitting in thirteenth place. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has seen a rise in sales off the back of the reveal of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, rising to seventeenth place in the top 40.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has stuck in sixth place for yet another week. EA has confirmed that more games in this new franchise are on the way, which seems to be keeping sales fairly continuous.

Last week, around 225,000 physical boxed games were sold in the UK. This is still a high performance for the market given the time of year. It’s also interesting that so many boxed games are being sold whilst high street stores are closed. With so many consumers purchasing games online and avoiding the need to go near a physical store, this could be the turning point for all physical games retail.

The top ten best-selling games at retail in the UK for the week ending May 9, 2020: