UK Charts Week Ending 15 March 2014

[binary solo]

I don't want to start my post negatively, so congrats to Respawn on getting the number 1 selling week 1 sales for 2014 so far.

But...

Wut? Why are people all excited about <100% HW increase, and giving that sort of launch performance a "system seller" tag, and saying non-Xbox fans were saying it wouldn't cause a HW boost?

I don't think I saw anyone in any threads I read about TF saying there wouldn't be a decent boost from TF, especially when a. 360 version was delayed and b. TF was being given away in the Xb one bundle. If people are to be honest 96% increase (i.e. less than doube) is fairly low. I predicted 150% increase (I actually wrote 250% but I meant 150%) so 96% is more than 33% short of what I was predicting, and that was taking account of the multiplatform status of the game. Does anyone doubt the sort of lift a true, much hyped exclusive would give to Xb one? PC and 360 have bled sales from Xb one no doubt about it.

At this point those who were predicting a momentary and insignificant, in the grand scheme of things, HW increase are looking to be the ones who are right. At less than doubling HW it means a 50% decrease for this week will put Xb one sales back to where they were for the 8 March week. One week of HW boost does not make a system seller, a system seller sustains a higher level of sales than pre-launch for a number of weeks.

As a game by itself, new IP and all, I would give the launch an 8/10, great but not amazing. For it's effect on Xb one sales I would give it a 5/10, it did an OK job giving a temporary boost but it hasn't really changed anything.

Also worth noting is that every other Xb one game except DR 3 went down, which means almost no one who bought the TF bundle took advantage of the free game to buy a second game. By contrast all PS4 games except for Thief went up in the chart (and Xb one Thief dropped away far more than PS4 Thief) with ACIV, KZ and the Lego Movie game re-entering the chart for PS4, with ACIV and Lego Movie Xb one no where to be seen. This means a significant HW boost for PS4, possibly as much as +50%