Black Friday didn't seem to help Rise of the Tomb Raider (14) rebound in sales, as reported by GFK Chart-Track, as PlayStation 4's Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection (6) surpassed it with a 999% sale increase.
Meanwhile, FIFA 16 (1, 2, 12 and 16) managed to reclaim the top spot on the charts, thanks to a range of different bundle deals. And while both Star Wars: Battlefront (3 and 7) and Fallout 4 (8 and 9) dropped in ranks, the former managed to sell more than the average blockbuster loss in the second week while the latter actually increased total units sold from last week.
Black Friday means that week 48, 2015 entertainment software is up +60% units over week 47, 2015 and +32% by revenue. These are higher increases than last year over the same 2 weeks, but actual software units and revenue on week 48, 2015 vs week 48, 2014 are lower this year (-9% units / -10% revenue). Not so for consoles themselves, with more sold in week 48, 2015 than the equivalent week last year (+8%). From the total number of consoles sold in week 48, 2014, PS4/Xbox One accounted for 75%. But this week 48, 2015 that has risen to 86%. This also helps to explain why PS4 and Xbox One software units in week 48, 2015 are higher than any other week and they take around 74% of all entertainment software units – this time last year these 2 formats took only 46% as PS3/360 still commanded over 30% of units.
Week 48, 2015 is one of only 9 weeks so far with over 70% PS4 & Xbox One combined share of total entertainment software units. Black Friday has a huge effect on the All Formats Chart this week, propelling EA’s ‘FIFA 16’ up 3 places and back to the top after a 6 week break from the No1 spot, thanks to a wide range of hard and soft bundles (+254%). Activision’s ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops III’ remains at No2 with sales up 47% over last week for similar reasons to FIFA above. Last week’s No1, EA’s ‘Star Wars Battlefront’ drops to No3 but sales are only down -52% (rather than a more typical -70% over week 1 for a major release). Bethesda’s third week on chart for ‘Fallout 4’ sees the title dropping 1 place to No4, but sales climb +8%. There are no new releases in the Top 40, but the chart is littered with titles that have re-entered or risen impressively from Black Friday hardware bundles or simply from Black Friday software discounting, some of which are as follows: Climbing 19 places to No5 is Sony’s PS4 ‘Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection’ (+999%), Rockstar/Take 2’s ‘GTA V’ rises 6 places at No6 (+385%), No8 and up 3 places is ‘Halo 5’ (+195%), No10 and up 10 places is ‘Forza 6’ (+381%), No12 and up 7 places is ‘Disney Infinity 3’ (+281%), No15 and up 19 places is ‘LEGO Marvel Superheroes’ (+541%). Big re-entries are all previous chart toppers, such as ‘The Last of Us: Remastered’ at No21, ‘Batman: Arkham Knight’ at No23, ‘Until Dawn’ at No24 and ‘The Witcher III’ at No28.
Check out the full chart below:
