UK Sales Charts: Expedition 33 Debuts in Second Place, Almost All Sales for PS5 Version

At this point you have to wonder what would happen to the games industry without PlayStation. Or am I reading too much into that lol

@PlatinumMikey That is what big Corp is dreaming about selling you a subscription were they control how long you can play content and how long its available. People say that is not true but im certain they would love to pull the old games and sell you the new ones every time

@PlatinumMikey That would result in Xbox being given a dominant market position and a monopoly on the high end console market. Higher prices and less innovation for consumers as a result of operating uncontested. The same will be true of Sony if Microsoft eventually leave the hardware space. Sony can charge whatever they want provided they don’t encroach on the pc market. Given the current extortionate cost and availability of gpu’s this seems pretty easy to avoid whilst still allowing significantly higher pricing and leaving software “risk” largely up to Microsoft and other third parties.

Who's buying that many copies of Hogwarts Legacy? Especially with it now being on +Plus. It's a great game but it's been up there now for weeks. Amazon must have a warehouse dedicated just to that game.

@GirlVersusGame it's been on deep discounts for the last few weeks, and until last week it hadn't been confirmed whether Switch owners would get "upgrades" (they won't).

@DarkTron I was going to buy a physical copy because I enjoyed it on Plus+ But then Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 happened and now I want them to take the number one spot even more so I bought that instead.

@get2sammyb Ah true I often forget there is such a thing as casual gaming. Minecraft is one of those top selling casual games and well I've been working on a 1:1 scale project since 2013. All the way up from PS3, to PS4, to PS5. I just finished 17,000,000 sq ft of Canary Wharf but have to keep pausing to wait for the actual real life developments to finish before I can continue. It's tricky now to send up drones around London, the ministry of defense aren't too happy about it. I also do the interiors and various underground stations and lines. It's very therapeutic so maybe that does fall under casual. Or under insanity considering how much of London I've actually built. It's fun to watch non-UK friends who've visited get lost for hours. Minecraft got me into architecture in a big way so casual games definitely have their place.

I would have finished Westferry Circus if Oblivion hadn't come along. English road markings are really hard, when you are using blocks especially. It took hours to get the calculations needed to include the two-level road interchange. It becomes advanced Cities Skylines very fast. The best update ever for Minecraft was raising the ceiling, it made buildings like One Canada Square and Heron Tower so much more doable on console.

@GirlVersusGame thats insanely amazing.

@GirlVersusGame can we get a video tour for this?? This is brilliant

Great to hear. I can't help but feel like Xbox dropped the ball not releasing Indy day one on PS5. It's a great game but with the delayed release it lost some of the hype for the PS5 launch

What a wonderful success story, and one that is truly deserved. Can hardly put the thing down and am around 30hrs in now.

Despite Oblivion sucking up all the air in the room; this one is still making waves.

@GirlVersusGame that’s what I thought lmao. Crazy sales figures for that game. WB finally got a hit thanks to whoever grabbed the HP rights. I must be one of the very few who still hasn’t played it though. Just made my purchase of Clair Obscure though. When I’m done with Shadows I’ll be rate on it! 😁

I'm not sure eventually is the word I would use, @Neither_scene. I think Microsoft are already heading in that direction. Right now, in many Countries, you cannot even buy a new Xbox console, and although Microsoft have said their will be another generation to follow the Series, I'm starting to have my doubts, as everything is beginning to point in the direction of them leaving consoles in the dust, and becoming just a publisher...

@Kidfunkadelic83 Thanks! It's I suppose a lifetime project. Whenever I have time off I return to build some more onto it. I've managed to make some friends in different architectural firms by requesting floor-plans, once they realized what it was actually for they always stayed in touch. One of my favorite architects told me I was in the wrong line of work, which really meant a lot and is probably true. It's just awkward with the police, if you keep getting spotted taking close to half a million photographs of different landmarks and buildings around major cities they start to ask questions. I was taken in once because of political ties etc/I'm sure they thought I was a spy. Which sounds funny but it really wasn't. There were no charges, just suspicion, and I got an apology.

I've even made friends with some train drivers too because I would watch their go-pro streams to figure out the parts of the underground I can't see, naturally they asked why I had an interest in subterranean infrastructure. Then there are places like restaurants, stores, and so on. The render distance is so good now that I can actually see my Gherkin from Wood Wharf, which means it will have to be moved. That thing took forever to build, you have to get the pattern on a surface that's warping as it rises with an integrated swirl in the exo-skeleton. The yacht is there because small scaled vehicles look ridiculous. I built maybe 30 ships, and again learned as I went along. I haven't made it out to London City Airport yet or the Dome, those will be interesting.

I love the little houses to the right. That's Thame's Quay. I moved to that side of the river when the real life quay on the opposite side slowed down it's development and then changed the concept plans to save money.

Clair Obscur has finally reached top 5 digital in the UK, which ain't half bad as it's on Game Pass digitally.

Oblivion is still #1 and isn't budging though! That must have had a massive UK launch on PS regardless of its availability on Game Pass too. It's numbers must be legit £££

And what, 6 million+ people chose pretty intense RPG's this week alone? Pretty cool to see.

@GirlVersusGame I would say that is about as far from casual as you could go with a casual game 😂 but it is very cool, nonetheless.

Casual gaming can be summed up like this:

"Shoooty, shooty, shoot. I like to shoot things"

"Miney crafty craft, I like to craft things"

"Sporty, sporty, sport. I like to sport things"

"Yerrr a Wizard, Harry. Ooh, a game I'll play that"

"GTAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ARRRRRRGHH IT'S THE ONLY GAME THAT MATTERS"

but, yes. Minecraft can be "casual"

I'd also say, after your updated comment about law enforcement, maybe don't take a drone if you do want to study the airport, because the UK police sometimes do have guns and some of them may be casual gamers and like to shooty, shooty shoot things 😬😬 seriously though, don't take a drone anywhere near an airport

@MrSensical Maybe in ten years? If we're all still around. I had to send one off to the firm who built the Salesforce tower. I still don't know what they did with it. I've done some other countries too but London is the one I keep returning to. It took me from casual gamer to whatever this is.

@Ravix That's almost word for word what I was told but not about a drone because I wouldn't use one near a flight path. This was about photographing different terminals/areas. I'll use Google Earth for the runways/aerial layout.

@get2sammyb Wprth noting that's physical sales not all sales. Data suggests Xbox players tend to go all digital even when buying and not just for downloading from Gamepass.

Still, it does show just how differently the platforms have skewed

Where oblivion?

@TheFakulty Those are physical numbers. Oblivion Remastered is only digital, unfortunately.

I mean selling even 4% on Xbox is impressive. That's like going out of your way to buy the box of a game you already have access to.

@TicklefistCP game pass works for time rich / money poor people. For time poor / money rich(ish, as in don't mind buying expensive one offs), then single games are the way to go.

I have a PS, but if I had an Xbox, I absolutely would not be paying a subscription that I might go literal months without using, and instead go for the boxed game that I'll either drip feed, or binge play depending on my time.

It seems mad, but E33 is currently on my "buy in Jan 2026" timeframe, estimating how long it will take to get through things in front of that!

It's interesting that Xbox is on its knees so it's just down to Playstation and the Switch, but only two of the games in the top 10 can be played on the Switch and both of them are on everything else anyway.

Especially striking since I'd imagine Nintendo have a higher percentage of physical sales than Sony since the Switch has limited storage, the games are actually played off the carts rather than being fully installed like on PS4/5, and that since the Switch is the more kid-friendly console parents aren't often going to be willing to put their card details in for digital purchases.

CO:E33 is the first physical game I've bought in over a year, absolute classic so far, both as a game and a work of music and art. Absolutely thrilled to see it do so well.
What's also striking about those charts is the titles that aren't there.

Wonder how many units Astro bot is at now.

I don't think so - It's very misleading more than anything.

Playstation gamers are more likely to buy their games in a Physical format compared to Xbox/PC - in fact the the Series X, the ONLY hardware with a Disc Drive, is also the lowest selling hardware meaning that the 'vast' majority on Xbox and ALL those on PC don't even have the option to buy a Physical copy.

Whilst I do appreciate that Sony has 'two' models now that are 'all-digital', both the PS5 Digital and PS5 Pro combined haven't sold more than the PS5 with a Disc drive and the PS5 Pro can add a disc drive so more than 50% can buy Physical whilst on Xbox, that percentage is much, much lower.

Xbox/PC too offer Game Pass. Say what you will about Game Pass, but that gives those Gamers another 'choice' - Pay £70+ for their Games or play them on Game Pass. So not only do they have the Choice to play without Buying, the majority who choose to buy rather than subscribe have 'no' choice but to buy their games Digitally - thus the 'balance' is skewed.

Couple that with the fact Xbox Consoles are 'optional' as ALL MS games are released on PC mening PC gamers don't 'need' to buy an Xbox or risk missing out on exclusives or forced to wait until they are finally released on PC. PC gamers will buy a PS5 - even if its just to play the 1-2 Exclusives a year they really enjoy and/or as a alternative to the 'PC/Xbox' ecosystem they already have access too.

Therefore the Xbox doesn't sell as many Units and as stated, the ONLY Xbox with a Physical Media Player has the lowest numbers of all so the ONLY people that will buy Physical copies of ANY game, will be the 'handful' of Xbox Series X owners that don't subscribe to Game Pass which is a 'very' small subset of the entire Xbox/PC market.

That's why it isn't crazy - but expected. If MS ditch Disc Drives entirely next gen and Sony doesn't, it will have 100% of the 'Physical' sales regardless.

If the majority of Playstation owners had the option to play via PS+ and couldn't buy it Physically if they wanted to play because they own a Digital only Playstation, then I'm sure the split would be more 65/35 (in Sony's favour as the bigger seller console).

@GirlVersusGame Seriously impressive work with that recreation. You come here to comment and now we all want an article showing the work in detail

Dunno why people would prefer to call.it Expedition 33 when there is a nicer catchy name like CLAIRRR OBSCURRR!

Subbed to PC Game Pass to try out Expedition 33 and not have to pay full price and man it is so freaking good. They really nailed it.

Seeing you can’t find physicals easily, no shock. It’s great for them it’s doing so well.

@GirlVersusGame That's the most impressive thing I've seen on this site. So much more impressive than finishing Dark Souls with a dance mat attached to a banana or whatever.
A dive into this project should be your next article @get2sammyb

Not a shock since series consoles AND Xbone made up 6% of the physical sales of Crisis Core Reunion, 3 and a half years ago...... and that wasn't on game pass.

Oh I'm so sorry, I need to be a sheep here. Ahem "well duh, this isn't a shock since the game is on game pass and as we all know a game will sell just fine on Xbox if its NOT on game pass. You need to just ignore facts like the first sentence of this comment."

Is that better? Can I get my shill liar check from slimy Phil now?

@Lysterao Not really when you consider there are more Digital PS5 consoles, BEFORE the console with the physical attachment, out there than series s consoles. PlayStation has been doing consistent DAY ONE digital releases along with physical releases since Mass Effect 2 launched in January 2011. Xbox only did this finally when Xbone launched. Halo 4 had a digital release day one as an experiment but Xbox didn't do it with any of their own games next until Forza 5.

In short, PS was doing digital releases at a bigger level long before Xbox was. And the fact of the matter is, nobody realises this nor will believe these facts I just said.

@Jey887 Thanks Jey, when people say passion projects that's my one. It's been something I've been able to return to time and time again throughout a big chunk of my life and I always come away from it feeling like it was time well spent. Memory is a strange thing I can remember what show or movie I watched while working on specific parts of the build. Key moments in my life too. If I ever have children I'm buying them games like that. A friend who built levels on LittleBigPlanet went on to work for a games company. They were that impressed by the advanced logic in his levels that they offered him a job. I've heard it's happened with Minecraft too but I don't mix with the community. Those few pictures above I think are the only ones I've shared online. I've done similar things with Cities Skylines. If I had to move anywhere instead of relying on GPS I'd just build it in the game and drive around in-game until I got my bearings. Which actually worked really well. I moved again not too long ago and I haven't gotten lost once, all thanks to Cities Skylines. It doesn't need an article but I do appreciate the kind words, I figured most people would find it boring. It's great to even have games like that on console.

That might not look like much but that interchange was absolute bliss. It handles all of my lanes of traffic without any cars having to slowdown and there's zero issues with gridlock or even switching lanes. When you see people with model railways and they sit there watching their trains zooming around, I get it. I sat there and watched that interchange for an hour when it was finished. Just seeing it now makes me want to boot the game up.

Hogwarts surprised me topping sales again, especially with the addition to PS Plus

It's quite impressive how Hogwarts is still at the top! Expedition 33 is my GOTY currently, toppled KCD2

hogwarts sales are bolstered by being on multiple platforms in a country that went crazy for harry potter

in fact 48% of hogwarts sales in the the uk this week were switch version

Of course 33 sold the majority of it's sales on the PS5, it's on Game Pass. No one who owns an Xbox is buying it because of that. Common sense. Lol.