UK charts: Prey debuts at No.2

Mario Kart 8: Deluxe manages to hold pole position in the UK charts this week, by just 600 units.

The title (which fell 71% in sales during its second week) managed to fight off fierce competition from Bethesda's Prey. The result is a bit of a surprise, although these figures - as usual - do not include digital data (so Prey may have really been the most popular UK game last week).

Regardless, what does this week one performance mean for Prey? One thing to consider is Bethesda's review policy. The firm currently sends copies of games to critics late, which means that reviews are not posted until after a title is launched.

Indeed, Prey's review scores are only going live now.

That might suggest Prey will do better next week. A good point of comparison are the two big titles that Bethesda launched last year - Doom and Dishonored 2. Although these IP are better known than Prey, they also had the same reviews policy.

Both titles had relatively muted launches (Dishonored 2 was particularly disappointing). However, they did eventually obtain a respectable audience over time - partly through strong reviews (although Dishonored 2, in particular, was cut in price significantly in the run-up to Christmas)

As a relatively unknown brand, and with reviews just going live, perhaps it was wrong to expect too much of Prey in its first week. Positive reviews and good word-of-mouth, coupled with a quiet month for new boxed games, should give Bethesda's title a chance to shine in the weeks ahead.

The only other new game in the charts this week's is Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy game, which was timed nicely to coincide with the movie. It reached No.31.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3, which was No.2 last week, fell down to No.13, while Little Nightmares dropped from No.4 to No.12.

Here is the GfK/UKIE Top Ten for the week ending May 6th: