Bandai Namco can start popping the champagne corks; The Witcher 3 has become the UK’s biggest gaming launch of 2015.
Eclipsing the week-one sales figures of the year’s previous top seller, the latest Witcher instalment – Wild Hunt – racked up numbers 53 per cent higher than EA’s delay-hit Battlefield Hardline.
What’s more, showing a marked increase in franchise interest, opening week Witcher sales were up a massive 608 per cent on the 2011 released Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.
Physical Witcher 3 sales were console skewed, with PS4 and Xbox One users accounting for 63 per cent and 32 per cent of hard copies respectively. The remaining 5 per cent of disc-based sales were PC.
From AAA smash hit to something a little more, well, agricultural, the week’s second highest selling game was the edge-of-your-seat thriller, Farming Simulator 15.
This was backed up in the podium positions by GTA 5, a game which last week recording its 5 millionth physical sale in the UK.
Football hit FIFA 15 and racing epic Project Cars lined up in the weekly sales charts in fourth and fifth positions respectively, with Wolfenstein: The Old Blood in sixth.
Related: Best Games 2015
The year’s former largest gaming launch, Battlefield Hardline moved up three positions in the week ending May 23 to seventh.
Familiar faces Mortal Kombat X, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Destiny rounded out the week’s top ten.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
