It's a good week for Activision as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare delivers a very strong first week at UK games retail.
For physical sales alone, the game has sold 39% more units than its predecessor managed (Call of Duty: Black Ops 4) during its launch week. The sales are not as high as 2017's Call of Duty: WWII, but GamesIndustry.biz understands that with digital included, the sales are a lot closer. We won't know the full extent of its digital performance until the GSD charts arrive later in the week.
62% of the game's sales are on PS4, which has the bigger install base and access to the Spec Ops survival mode. 38% of sales are on Xbox One.
The arrival of Call of Duty at No.1 means EA's FIFA 20 slips to No.2. Meanwhile, Mario Kart 8: Deluxe falls from No.2 to No.6 (despite sales rising 2% week-on-week).
The rest of the Top Five are all new releases. At No.3 is WWE 2K20. The game seems to have charted highly, but actually launch week sales are down 31% compared to its predecessor. The title has been criticised in the press for various bugs and flaws, which may have hurt its performance.
Like Call of Duty, 62% of boxed sales are on PS4 with 38% on Xbox One.
Next, The Outer Worlds from Obsidian debuted at No.4. This is an interesting game, because the media and certain consumers may have expected more from the title's performance (it must be noted that this is just physical sales -- digital is not included and will likely make up a significant part of the sales). This new IP has been compared to the Fallout series, reviews were decent overall, and with a (comparative) lack of significant releases this Christmas, The Outer Worlds had been earmarked as a breakout hit.
But just because expectations had risen amongst media and gamers, that may not have been the case for its publisher. The Outer Worlds was published by Private Division, which is Take-Two's smaller label dedicated to independent games. It was also released on the same day at Call of Duty, which suggests the firm was not expecting a big launch (at least not at physical retail). Indeed, when you consider the game was also available via Game Pass, it appears Private Division and Obisidian are hoping it will benefit from strong word-of-mouth and perform well over the full Christmas period.

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