Soulcalibur 6 latest to see physical sales plummet compared to predecessor

But the soul still burns.

News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-chief

Updated on 22 Oct 2018

UK physical launch sales of Soulcalibur 6 are down drastically compared to Soulcalibur 5 - just the latest of many 2018 games where this has occurred.

Earlier this month, UK physical sales of the excellent Assassin's Creed Odyssey were 25 per cent down compared to last year's Origins - although worldwide, combined digital and physical sales were up overall. And then last week, Black Ops 4's UK physical launch sales were the lowest seen in a decade.

Soulcalibur 6 this week has, arguably, a tougher comparison than both. Its UK physical launch sales were down more than 55 per cent compared to Soulcalibur 5 - although this launched all the way back in 2012, when digital sales were far from the norm.

The rise of digital sales will make up a lot of the difference, then - which is more positive for game publishers, but still bad news for game retailers.

Ubisoft's new toys-to-life franchise Starlink: Battle for Atlas, a game where you need to go into a shop to buy the physical bits and bobs, arrived in 14th place in the chart. Notably, more than 80 per cent of sales were of the Switch version, where Nintendo's own Star Fox is an exclusive character.