Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy keeps the top – July 21, 2018

Week ending on July 21, 2018, the UK’s Top 10 chart of the best selling retail and wholesale video games, Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy on Xbox One and on Nintendo Switch platforms keep the top of charts for the 4th consecutive week. Recently released Wanter Bros’ LEGO The Incredibles keeps the second position, the and Sea of Thieves, which was down below the 40th position of the Charts recently, has suddenly had a boost and jumped all the way up to the third position.

Crash Bandicoot: N.Sane Trilogy retained its place at the peak of the UK physical sales charts for the fourth week in a row. The title, which performed strongly on its initial PS4 release, has been boosted by the addition of Xbox One and Nintendo Switch versions last month. Its success indicates that gamers retain their appetite for the mascot gaming characters of yore.

Indeed, Crash Bandicoot isn’t the only mascot character in this week’s UKIE/GfK top ten. Sonic Mania Plus, a new release on Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch, enters the charts at number five. Sonic, once the flag bearer for Sega’s Mega Drive and Saturn consoles, sold most copies on the console of Sega’s great rival Nintendo, with 52% of the game’s sales on Switch, 34% on PS4 and 15% on Xbox One.

However, the big story of this week’s top ten as a whole was the resurgence among Microsoft games. Amazon Prime Day took place last week and Microsoft timed a range of Xbox One discounts to coincide with the internet giant’s sale.

The tactic appears to have paid off. Three Xbox One exclusives re-entered the top ten on the back of sales promotions/their inclusion in console bundles. Rare’s Sea of Thieves took third place, Minecraft: Xbox Edition took fourth and Forza Horizon 3 re-entered in sixth.

All three games came close to even greater sales achievements. With only 2,000 sales separating Forza Horizon in sixth place from Crash Bandicoot: N.Sane Trilogy in first, the Microsoft promotions weren’t far from the top of the charts in terms of actual sales.

LEGO The Incredibles, in second place in the chart, also performed notably well. Having placed third on last week’s chart it actually rose one place (albeit with a 7% drop in sales week on week), perhaps driven by the release of its tie-in movie.

Overall, it was an interesting week in the UK physical sales chart and one that demonstrated the influence of sales promotions on a title’s performance.