Starfield Tops the Weekly UK Physical Charts

By Abdullah AminSeptember 11, 2023

2 minutes read

Abdullah Amin is a certified Google Data Analyst.

Starfield is a huge commercial success for Bethesda, judging from the figures that have been revealed about Starfield’s performance at global launch so far. According to Phil Spencer, the space RPG reached over one million concurrent players on its global release day. Overall, over 6 million gamers tuned in to play Starfield on its launch day, making it Bethesda’s biggest game launch of all time.

As of this morning, #Starfield has already surpassed 6 million players, making it the biggest Bethesda game launch of all time. pic.twitter.com/4yZa1lAYjW
— Starfield (@StarfieldGame) September 7, 2023

While there are several complaints about Starfield’s poor performance on PC, it is still performing very well on Steam and reached an all-time high peak of over 330K concurrent players on Steam. The culprit behind Starfield’s poor PC optimization and performance appears to be bad code; more on that here.

Still, Starfield is showing no sign of stopping and has secured the top spot in the UK‘s physical charts this week. According to GfK‘s latest report (via Gamesindustry.biz), the game’s physical version has outsold its digital counterpart on Xbox, indicating continued interest in physical copies among gamers.

GfK’s data reveals a strong following for Starfield’s physical edition among Xbox fans, although specific sales figures remain undisclosed. In terms of sales, the game performed better on Xbox compared to its PC version.

However, Starfield’s premium upgrade experienced some fluctuations on its journey to the top. After an impressive debut at No. 7 last week, this version, which includes a box with a digital access code for early game access, slipped to No. 34 in the charts. This decline can be attributed to the game’s broader release on September 6, resulting in a 71% decrease in sales for this particular edition.

Christopher Dring from Gamesindustry.biz also provided insights into Starfield’s boxed sales performance in the UK via X (formerly Twitter).

He noted that Starfield falls behind other titles like Hogwarts Legacy, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2, Star Wars: Eclipse, Resident Evil 4, Final Fantasy XVI, and Dead Island 2 in terms of physical launch success in 2023.

Starfield is No.1 in the UK boxed charts, which is impressive. It’s not the biggest physical launch of 2022 (it’s behind Hogwarts, Zelda, Star Wars, Resi 4, FF16 and Dead Island 2 on that list), but it’s almost identical to Diablo 4, and that’s significant because…
— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) September 10, 2023

Dring drew parallels between Starfield and Diablo 4, highlighting their similarities. Both games are available on PC and Xbox, with Diablo 4 benefiting from availability on PlayStation 5, contributing to its physical sales success—unlike Starfield.

Dring, however, took into account the impact of Game Pass on Starfield’s potential success, as the game is available through this popular subscription service. Despite facing strong competition, Starfield could become one of the best selling games of 2023.

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