Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and PS4 at the Top; Persona 5 Comes in at No.7

Despite only being on sale for two days, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe managed to top all of its competitors and become the UK’s best-selling game at retail for the month of April.

That being said much of the month’s best performers were all either older games or games freshly released last month. In fact, only six new releases in April managed to crack the Top 50, with only four cracking the Top 20. These four included: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at No.1, Persona 5 at No.7, Yooka-Laylee at No.17, and Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 at No.18. The other two, in the Top 50 but not the Top 20, included Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition and Little Nightmares.

Elsewhere on the charts, last month’s No.1, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, came in at No.2. Meanwhile, GTA V jumped from No.6 to No.3, LEGO Worlds moved up one spot to No.4, and FIFA 17 kicked its way from No.7 to round at the top five. Other notable releases from last month: Horizon: Zero Dawn fell from No.2 to No.12, The Legend of Zelda dropped three places to No.6, and Mass Effect: Andromeda declined from No.4 to No.9.

As for the physical market as a whole, it fell month-on-moth, from 1.67 million boxed games sold in the UK during March, generating £59m, to 974,000 copies and £29m. The reason for the drastic difference simply comes down to the game releases, as last month saw many notable releases such as Horizon: Zero Dawn, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, Mass Effect: Andromeda, NieR: Automata, LEGO Worlds, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Meanwhile, in April Persona 5 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe were really the only notable releases. Also, the Switch launched last month, which definitely pushed a good deal of game sales.

Meanwhile, the best performing console for the month was PS4, accounting for 44.3% of all physical games sold in the UK — ahead of Xbox One at 30.8% and Nintendo Switch at 10.9%, an impressive number given its install base compared to the other two consoles.

As for the best performing publisher for the month: it was Nintendo, both in terms of games sold and revenue generated.

Here is the Top 20 for April 2017 — April 2nd to April 29th — courtesy of GfK and UKIE.