UK Charts: Pokémon Sword And Shield Loses Top Spot, But Nintendo Switch Dominates Top Ten

It's amazing how COD is still selling so well.

I'm starting to believe that Minecraft never will run out of road. At least I've been starting to believe this for years now. But it's interesting to see how I'm still starting to believe it, and I will probably start to believe it next year as well.

Pokemon Sword/Shield sold ~65,000 retail copies in its 2nd week.

Mario & Sonic 2020 has incredibly strong legs - sales have increased week-over-week every week since launch. Strong sales for Luigi's Mansion 3 and other Switch evergreens too, especially as Black Friday approaches.

Kinda sad that Shenmue 3 may sell less retail copies than the number of people who backed the game on Kickstarter.

Civ VI landed at like, #39 or something. Even in the US according to Amazon, the Switch version was outselling the others on their launch day.

I find that interesting.

@JayJ Call of duty and fifa are those crazy evergreen franchises that will seemingly never lose sales, despite [removed] the majority of people that pay attention.

To me, the moment those franchises stop being automatic top sellers is the moment AAA companies actually start trying to put out decent games again.

Good. It doesn't deserve to be #1. More like #69,420.

GTA5 still hanging around I see.

Still can believe Plants Vs Zombies is not on the Switch. EA is just stupid.

I think the newest COD and Jedi Fallen Order are both great games but seeing FIFA up there every year just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I also wonder where Pokémon would place if they put Sword and Shield sales together?

@TheAwesomeBowser

The indiviual formats chart has Pokemon Sword at number 1 ahead of PS4's CoD. So you can have a good cry about that.

Notice how the current two top are game specific in those franchise not the who series of COD or Star Wars in general but game specific. And combine Pokemon most likely would still be tops but they have to split them up to make it look good for their Advertiser support.

British region loses its top stop in its second weekend... in Britain.
Well, Dexit is an issue after all, considering even Crash Bandicoot managed to cling onto the top of the podium.

@AlexSora89

Crash Bandicoot released in June with little to no competition at the time.

Pokemon Sword is number 1 in the individual formats chart. These Pokemon games are probably near 10 million sold now. All the ranting and raving of Pokemon fans did nothing.

@SBandy To be fair 10 million is a lot normally, but isn't really that impressive for Pokémon.

@SBandy
As I said elsewhere, I'm currently watching an LP from an Italian YT channel showing the game, to see if in the end it's gonna be worth a purchase.
Even in the case I do suck it up, it's still a defeat in my book - up until now, every mainline Pokémon game has always been worth the purchase by matter of principle. If even such an avid fan as myself not only misses day one (as money can get in the way, naturally) but is also still on the fence, there have to have been some mistakes on the way from announcement to release.

@NIN10DOXD
Not at all, in fact.

This is usually what Pokemon's launch week looks like (CoD and an EA product beating Pokemon) so this being the case in week 2 shouldn't be a surprise.

@NIN10DOXD

After less than two weeks though?

@AlexSora89

The fact you are watching a LP and dedicating so much time to the games already suggests you are already defeated.

@AlexSora89
Sword/Shield would quite comfortably top the chart if you combined both SKUs.

@SBandy Ok fanboy.

@TheAwesomeBowser

I don't even play Pokemon games so you are wrong there bud.

@SBandy Oh.

GOOD screw Pokemon

I'm still amazed how Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is still up there..... And it's been like almost 3 years now since the game launched

Seems like not many people likes Shenmue III or Death Stranding.

@SBandy
Well, I am. That, and the guy LPing Pokémon Sword is pretty darn funny when he messes up.

@westman98
Duly noted.

@KBuckley27
Screw Pokémon Sword and Shield, you mean.

Nice to see several Nintendo titles in the top 20. 👍

Oof, pretty rough for Shenmue 3. I guess this is just another example of the internet community being the minority.

Wow, Nintendo has really had a resurgence in the UK.

@KryptoniteKrunch
I don't think this chart takes Shenmue 3 Kickstarter numbers into account.

But that doesn't really matter - the brand is still irrelevant anyways.

@SBandy I mean the series did these things in the 90s and early 2000s at its peak. They still make money, but the sales of the first generation and second generation are a standard that can't be beat. Even generation 4 only got to third despite the DS outselling everything, but the PS2. Sales after that haven't really gone up, but rather down for the most part.

@KryptoniteKrunch Shenmue’s never been big sadly, it’s always been a cult title. But yeah based on sites like this, you’d think it was one of the biggest releases of the year.

Jedi Fallen Order deserves to be up there. That game is amazing.

@JayJ yeah but I prefer haddock.... 😂😂😂

This is dumb, if they combine both versions sales they would be at the top spot.

@NIN10DOXD The sales have been relatively static since gen 3

Ru/Sa were ~16 million
D/P at ~17.5 million
B/W at ~15.5 million
X/Y at ~16.5 million
Su/Mo at ~16 million

Though I'd note the last two are on Nintendo's lowest selling handheld (and note Ru/Sa were playable on DS) but still managed to maintain the standard sales.

So far on Switch LGPE is over 11.25 million in 9 months and on track to beat out Fire Red/Leaf Green's 12 million. It makes me wonder if the 3DS slower sales actually held back X/Y and Su/Mo. Meaning Sword/Shield may be capable of beating out D/P now it's on a more popular system than the 3DS.

@Dr_Lugae
It's hard to say how much Sword/Shield will sell given that we dont know when future Pokemon games will be released.

Pokemon Sun/Moon sold 14.6 million copies in its first ~7 weeks, which is a record launch for any Nintendo game. However, Ultra Sun/Moon released just a year later and effectively halted Sun/Moon's sales, which is why it only managed to sell another 1.5 million copies after such a huge initial launch.

If Ultra Sword/Shield is released next year, Sword/Shield sales will come to a halt, and it will ultimately end up selling about as much as the last 5 Pokemon games.
If not, the sky is the limit.

@Dr_Lugae If you notice though. All those numbers are close, but there is a much bigger gap in lifetime sales. The newer games drop off much faster while having more explosive launches.