Strong first week for Resident Evil 7 in UK boxed charts

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard may not live up to the first week sales of Resident Evil 5 or 6, but it was nevertheless a strong performance for the survival horror game in the UK.

RE7 is the third fastest-selling title in the franchise to-date (with Resident Evil 5 at No.1 and Resident Evil 6 at No.2). It may not sound that impressive, but considering the challenges facing the UK retail market, the numbers will come as a relief to Capcom. The overall sales actually sit right in the middle of our prediction last week, and its performance is strong when you consider that January isn't typically a good month for game sales. Also note, digital download numbers are not included in the charts data.

The most popular platform for the game was PS4, accounting for 73% of the game's sales. Sony has been the platform holder partner for the title, with Resident Evil 7 fully compatible with PlayStation VR.

Although single-player games traditionally don't see the same longevity as multiplayer products, Resident Evil 7 may enjoy a slightly longer tail thanks to a relatively quiet February for new games, plus a number of DLC releases for the title.

Resident Evil is now Capcom's most successful franchise in the UK and sits alongside Just Dance and Crash Bandicoot in terms of lifetime revenue generated in the country, GfK says.

There were five new games in the Top 40, and all of them came from Japanese developers. Indeed, the quiet January month is typically a popular sales window for the likes of Bandai Namco, Tecmo Koei and Capcom. The other games to make the Top 40 this week are Square Unix's Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter at No.3, Sega's Yakuza 0 at No.8, Bandai Namco's Tales of Verseria at No.15 and the same publisher's Digimon World: Next Order at No.24.

The new releases saw the market jump up 46% in terms of units sold, with 340,000 boxed games sold in the UK last week.

GTA V dropped to No.2 this week, but actually saw its sales increase by 11% week-on-week. However, if you rank games by revenue instead of units, Kingdom Hearts would have been No.2, while GTA V would slip to No.4.