Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain‘s sales stats have been revealed by the UK games chart tracker, and despite it undoubtedly being one of the most anticipated games of the year, its first week sales still fell behind those of Batman: Arkham Knight and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
MGSV still pulled in great numbers, debuting at number one in the chart ahead of Mad Max and achieving the faster week one sales of any Metal Gear Solid game to date. It also managed to achieve three times as many sales on PS4 than it did the Xbox One, with 72% of all physical copies sold being purchased for Sony’s console, in comparison with just 22% for Microsoft’s console.
Considering the lengthy promotional campaign for the game and the news that it could well be Hideo Kojima’s last entry in the series, some will consider it surprising that it didn’t manage to break sales records for the year. However, with the Arkham series being one the concluding chapter of one of gaming’s biggest blockbuster franchise, it would have been difficult for MGSV to have topped it – what’s more surprising is that it didn’t manage to best The Witcher 3. While The Witcher 3 is a fantastic game, the series is hardly as notorious as MGS, and that it managed to best the sales of The Phantom Pain should be considered a huge accomplishment for developers CD Projekt Red.
Despite MGSV‘s sales not being record-breaking, Konami will still be pleased by how well it has performed in the UK, and it remains to be seen whether it will manage to overcome Arkham Knight and The Witcher 3 in regions such as the US.
Elsewhere in the chart, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition and Until Dawn received significant drops in sales, with the former’s sales plummeting by 64% moving it down to third place, while the latter’s fell by 52% and moved it into fourth place.
