God of War Ragnarok UK Launch Sales Bigger Than Modern Warfare II, Elden Ring, and Pokémon - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 14 November 2022 / 5,130 Views
God of War: Ragnarök debuted in first place on the UK retail charts, according to GfK Chart-Track for the week ending November 12, 2022. 82 percent of launch week retail sales were on the PlayStation 5 and 18 percent on the PlayStation 4.
The game had the second biggest launch of 2022 at retail in the UK, only behind FIFA 23. This means the PlayStation exclusive had a bigger launch than Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Elden Ring, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.
12 percent of God of War: Ragnarök sales came from the PlayStation 5 bundle that included the game. The bundle also represented 60 percent of all PS5 consoles sold during the week. The PlayStation 5 had its best-selling week of 2022.
Launch week sales for God of War: Ragnarök were 51 percent higher than God of War (2018). After one week it is already the third best-selling God of War game of all time in the UK.
Sonic Frontiers debuted in fourth place with sales five percent higher than 2017's Sonic Forces. It should be noted the digital market has grown since 2017 and these figures only include retail sales. 40 percent of sales for Sonic Frontiers were on the PS5, 34 percent on the Nintendo Switch, 14 percent on Xbox consoles, and 12 percent on the PS4.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II dropped down to second place after two weeks at the top. Sales for the game fell 39 percent week-on-week.
The increase in PS5 hardware sales improved the sales for the other big Sony release of this year, Horizon: Forbidden West, which saw sales up 141 percent and climbing from 12th to seventh place.
A number of Switch games saw an increase in sales this week. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe dropped two spots on the charts, however, sales were up 34 percent. Nintendo Switch Sports saw sales increase 19 percent, Splatoon 3 sales were up 22 percent, Animal Crossing: New Horizons sales jumped 50 percent, and Minecraft (NS) sales were up 42 percent.
Here are the top 10 best-selling titles for the week:
- God of War Ragnarök - NEW
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
- FIFA 23
- Sonic Frontiers - NEW
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
- Nintendo Switch Sports
- Horizon: Forbidden West
- Splatoon 3
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- Minecraft (NS)
Thanks, GamesIndustry.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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That's some pretty damn crazy launch sales to be outdoing even MW II. If things are like this in the US and the rest of Europe it's off to an amazing start.
Amazing results for GoW:Ragnarok, surpassing Modern Warfare II, Elden Ring, and Pokémon is no easy feat. Truly a testament to the great anticipation behind this game. Hopefully the game will have some good legs.
Also, where is Bayonetta 3? Unbelievable that a game so hugely anticipated to be out of the top 10 so soon after launch... nothing to worry here, certainly Bayonetta 3 will have fabulous long legs, just like the beautiful protagonist,! It is only natural for a game so humongously and universally anticipated.
This is insane. So GoWR sold more physical copies on just PS5 and PS4 than MW2 and Elden Ring did on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC?
I’m trying to think of a reason why GoWR may have sold more physical copies comparatively than MW2 and Elden Ring. There were two special editions for GoWR, but they had a digital copy of the game, so were they counted as physical or digital? They had the bundle, but so did MW2.
If the UK in any way represents the sales globally, GoWR sales will be monstrous. Elden Ring sold 12+mil copies in its first 3wk, and MW2 likely sold even more.
Elden Ring will have done more on PC, which will skew more digital. I think Xbox in general skews more digital than PlayStation.
MW2 also had a large digital share. I don't have the exact numbers but it was something like 150k physical vs 450k digital for MW2, whereas GOW is more likely along the lines of 150k physical vs 150k digital. I would be surprised it was much higher than that.
Have COD sales always skewed abnormally high for digital compared to other games? Would also wonder what the ratio was for GoW 2018.
That’s a great point about ER.
I believe Sony’s most recent numbers stated game sales are now 80% digital. That’s certainly not the number for a AAA game, though, because there are a ton of indie games that are digital only, as well as other reasons why that number is so high.
Let the carnage begin!
Hard to tell if this was a big week for ps5 hardware or not without numbers.
One thing tho, GOW 2018 did about 97k physical retail copies when it launched.
I get around 29k.
97k + 51 % = 146.5k. 12 % of would mean 17.5k Ragnarök PS5 bundles sold. Then divide that in 0.6 and you get 29.3k PS5s sold in total
Your calc is correct, I notced my mistake a tad late lol.
That's the number I got as well. The best number we have for PS5 in the UK for 2022. But only by about 4K.
Yeah, but that's only physical copies.
What about the total including physical + digital?
Again, without numbers is just a guess.
It's not really a guess. The bundles represented 12% of total Ragnarok physical sales across PS4 and PS5 (I initially thought it was 12% of PS5 version alone so I miscalculated), digital is irrelevant in this context.
The Bundle contains a digital copy of the game. In the article it says "12 percent of God of War: Ragnarök sales came from the PlayStation 5 bundle that included the game."
