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Last week was an important one for Nintendo, with the arrival of its Switch hardware and launch slate of games around the world. Early indicators seem relatively positive with plenty of stores in various territories selling out of launch stock, but hard numbers and chart results will help with a broader picture.

The UK charts could help with this, though it's been a relatively weak territory for the big N in recent years. These results reflect physical retail sales from retailers participating in the counts, and don't include download sales.

The launch slate of Switch retail games, has seen three titles make it into the top 10, though top spot eluded The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Horizon Zero Dawn took top spot on PS4, the biggest sales arrival of the year to date and Sony's top PS4 new IP launch in this generation.

Breath of the Wild came in second spot, then, and was the third biggest UK launch in the IP's history - by UKIE's reckoning, anyway - behind The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on GameCube and the Wii version of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Its status as a Switch launch title helped account for 78% of those sales, but a highly creditable 22% of sales went to the Wii U iteration.

Elsewhere 1-2-Switch claimed fourth spot, showing that some early adopters couldn't resist the allure of the party game along with their system. Super Bomberman R took seventh place, and the Switch version of Just Dance 2017 is credited with helping that title return to the top 40 in 24th place.

After that we're left with some evergreen 3DS titles. Pokémon Sun and Moon are still in the top 40, with Sun in 22nd and Moon all the way down in 35th. New Super Mario Bros. 2 is still hanging around, too, in 38th place.

Breath of the Wild lost the battle of the open-world titles in the UK, then, with the sizeable and enthused PS4 audience jumping on board with Horizon Zero Dawn. Overall it wasn't a bad launch week in terms of UK software for Switch, with the surprise perhaps being 1-2-Switch up in fourth spot.


[source ukie.org.uk]