Upon first glance, the UK boxed charts paint a pretty picture of Anthem‘s physical sales. BioWare’s latest debuts at No. 1 this week. However, digging a little deeper a potentially bleaker outlook emerges. Anthem physical sales were less than 50 percent of BioWare’s previous game Mass Effect Andromeda. The game also sold less than 10 percent of Destiny’s physical game sales, to a series which Anthem appears to be taking direct inspiration from. Digital sales continue to rise, making it hard to draw concrete comparisons but it still doesn’t look great.
Anthem physical sales were down in comparison to more recent releases as well, selling less than Resident Evil 2 and Kingdom Hearts 3 did in their debut weeks. The popularity of Anthem across different platforms also makes for interesting reading. Despite a marketing push of the game by Xbox, the game actually sold 54 percent of its sales on the PS4. While the Xbox One made up 40 percent of sales.
The chart saw the decline of the wave of game’s which debuted in last week’s chart. Far Cry New Dawn performed best against the launch of Anthem, dropping just one place to No. 2. However, Metro Exodus found itself down No. 5, a drop of three from last week. The biggest declines were from Jump Force, falling out of the top ten down to No. 17, and Crackdown 3 which found itself outside the chart in its first week but now falls from No. 13 down to No. 26.
The real story of this week’s chart will be Anthem‘s physical sales performance against BioWare’s previous game, Mass Effect Andromeda, as well as its significant defeat against rival Destiny 2. The original Destiny was released almost five years ago now, however, and the shift in the physical and digital sales landscape can’t be ignored when analyzing this figure.
Anthem was available to play by all from last Friday, February 22. Our review gave the game a 2.5 rating, calling Anthem “an unfulfilled destiny.”
[via GameIndustry.biz]
