Fire Emblem: Three Houses on top for the 2nd week

Fire Emblem: Three Houses, a tactical role-playing game developed by Intelligent Systems and Koei Tecmo Games, has retained first place in the UK physical sales charts following its debut at number one last week.

The game, a Nintendo Switch exclusive, is the first Fire Emblem IP to release on home consoles since 2007’s Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn and something of a surprise hit.

Even in the summer market, a notoriously slow time of year for game sales, Fire Emblem’s success has taken many by surprise. Though sales of the game slipped by 60% week-on-week, a substantial sales drop is the norm for a title’s second week on retail, and the game still held its own against major IPs like FIFA and Crash Bandicoot.

There are two ways of looking at Fire Emblem’s unexpected success. It’s undoubtedly positive that word of mouth and critical approval can still drive success. Fire Emblem: Three Houses has a metascore of 88 out of 100 on review aggregator Metacritic and has generated a buzz on social media.

On the other hand, it could be seen as the sign of a dearth of exciting new games that FIFA 19 was only 66 unit sales away from regaining top place in the charts. FIFA 19 has been on sale since November last year and, while the arrival of a new football season and price drop have made it more appealing, the game’s proximity to number one is a sign of a lack of fresh new releases.

The only new entry to this week’s charts was another EA IP, Madden NFL 20, which performed respectively considering that American Football is still a relatively niche sport in the UK. Last week’s number two, Wolfenstein: Young Blood, dropped to eight in this week’s charts with a 61% week-on-week decrease in sales.

The remainder of the top ten is comprised of games with long-standing appeal such as GTA V, Mario Kart 8: Deluxe and Minecraft. An indication of the Nintendo Switch’s current strength is that four of the top ten are Nintendo exclusives.

As gaming continues to transition to digital UK physical games sales have dropped 15% year-on-year. This may, in part, account for the surprising nature of this week’s chart results.

A more extended list of top sellers can be found here.