Sea of Thieves is No.4 as Black Friday transforms UK Charts

EA, Activision, Microsoft and Nintendo were the big Black Friday winners at UK games retail.

[Spurg]

"Shenmue III debuted in fourth place in the Japanese charts last week, selling less than 18,000"

"the remastered collection of Shenmue and Shenmue II sold twice as many units when it launched in 2018."

"Shenmue III failed the top ten in the UK as well."

Where was the marketing team? Sony and deep silver have the marketing rights to Shenmue III and they failed it. This is the second time this year that Sony has failed to properly market a games that they have exclusive marketing rights to, Control failed to reached the top 20 when it was released.

[littletad]

From what I'm seeing, it seems they spent every marketing power they had on Death Stranding.

[UltraNova]

This was a game for the fans. This series is dated so no one was expecting big numbers. I presume anyone who wanted this game crowdfunded it, so any retail sales are a bonus.

Btw Sony was not paying the bills, they just did some promotion namely getting the word out on the crowdfunding project.

If anyone has info on this deal they can post it.

Edit:

Just read Rainslacker's comment bellow, lol.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

Shenmue has never been a high selling franchise.

[Elda]

The Shenmue games has always been a niche series.

[gangsta_red]

That is something to think about though. Sony was extremely proud to bring the Shenmue creator on stage and announce the game and tell folks they were going to market it.

And yet there was zero.

Sounds like it was nothing more than a PR stunt for their E3 show.

[MasterCornholio]

Well I guess they helped sell his Kickstarter. At least that's what I thought the event was for more than anything.

[Redemption-64]

Maybe because Sony didn't fund the game or own the rights. Given the game went on kickstarter, one can guess Sony wasn't fitting the bill for that, so why should they advertise for it. Sony giving them a stage to announce their game doesn't meet they should advertise or promote the game.

[rainslacker]

I don't recall Sony saying they were going to fund the marketing. That would be on Deep Silver. Thought they just put them on stage to bring attention to the kickstarter. I don't recall Sony doing any marketing for the game other than that, outside putting it on the front page of the PSN store, and having a couple blogs about it.

According to this,

https://www.denofgeek.com/u...

Sony was just marketing the Kickstarter, and doing some publishing support....the latter of which is pretty vague. The Kickstarter was to gauge customer interest so the publisher could decide how much to fund it if I remember correctly.

I don't think the publisher put much marketing into this game at all. Ys.Net seemed to have done most of the work through social media marketing.

[gangsta_red]

@Rainslacker

There were very early reports that Sony would be involved with the marketing.

http://www.escapistmagazine...

https://www.google.com/amp/...

Maybe deals changed and something didn't fall through but whatever it was there was definitely next to zero marketing involved from Sony.

@colbert
I'm sure Sega knew the game would be a bust. The first two sequels failed and there really isn't any Western appeal for a game with that name.

[TheColbertinator]

What let me down was Sega's lack of involvement in Shenmue 3. Guess they want it out of their picture.

[rainslacker]

Both those articles state that Sony isn't actually involved in it. There was a partnership, but it wasn't to the extent that it was first assumed.

They probably weren't completely out of the production, and assisted Ys.Net in some way. But nowhere did it appear they were going to be involved in any marketing other than with the Kickstarter. I don't think anything changed after the KS reveal, just some confusion over what Sony was doing based on vague statements which had terminology which usually means more being done.

[gangsta_red]

@Rainslacker

I don't know what you're reading but both articles specifically says that Sony would be involved in it's marketing.

And yes it was all vague and still is which just proves it was more of a PR stunt for Sony's E3.

[rainslacker]

One article was specifically about how there was a misunderstanding about what Sony was doing. I read both articles, even looked one up before I replied to you, and while sony did say marketing involvement, the scope of that was misconstrued to mean for the duration of the production, when sony was only talking about marketing the KS.

[Skate-AK]

I actually saw a few ads about it on YouTube but they were placed by Epic Games.

[TFJWM]

Pretty much anyone that wanted Shenmue crowdfunded it. Game sales of it will be word of mouth at this point. It never had a huge market.

[timotim]

IMO Yu should have went full on multiplat with this title...its should have been everywhere...launching on PS4 and EGS only was a mistake when Shenmue 1&2 outsold a game that was 18 years in the making...

[rainslacker]

UK has Black Friday?

[CaptainCook]

Yeah, the UK doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving though....

[Kiwi66]

We have it here in New Zealand

[Kiwi66]

Guess one person doesn't know that Black Friday is celebrated in 50-60 % of countries around the world

[RosweeSon]

Yeah a poor mans version, get rid of any old 💩
I’m from U.K and can get some deals but it’s mainly just old stock being shifted and nothing to exceptional.

[rainslacker]

That's basically all BF is here in the states outside the doorbusters. Maybe a few good deals mixed in. TVs in particular are just moving out the old versions to make way for the new, and theyll be close to that price after the holidays anyways.

This year's BF was pretty disappointing. Amazon sucked for BF and cyber monday, and for some unknown reason, after a decade they cant separate actual video games from any and all electronics that somehow have a connection to PC hardware or headphones, so I'm wading through pages of crap just to find one or two disappointing video game deals....and yes, that was just me going on a rant.:)

[ScootaKuH]

Yeah but it shouldn't. We don't have Thanksgiving so we shouldn't have Black Friday. It's just one of many American "imports" we have

[MasterCornholio]

Spain doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving either but they have black Friday.

Truth is black Friday is really just a marketing tool to drive sales and get rid of old stock. Which is why you see many country's adapt it.

[rainslacker]

I guess it's reasonable other parts of the world would want to mimick a successful and highly anticipated sales day. I mean, the countless other random holidays 2-3 times a month cant be enough

@master

Bf started because retailers knew a lot of people started their xmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving. Was a nice, not quite arbitrary date that they competed for customers over. The name black Friday came later after it became a kind of urban legend that it was a terrible day to go shopping. Retail didnt originally call it that, and was more a Thanksgiving sale.

This years black Friday was kind of disappointing to me. I was hoping for some better tool sales at the home improvement stores, but they all kind of sucked and weren't any better than what they normally have all year long

[timotim]

So you mean to say that even though Sea of Thieves is included in Gamepass, that gamers around the world still purchase it!?!? But I was told that no gamer would actually buy a title that's included in Gamepass...🤔

[gangsta_red]

It's almost as if not everyone subscribes to Game Pass and that the games offered on there are still available to be purchased physically or digitally.

[timotim]

Interesting indeed. Amazing how that works. So for those without XGP, they can still purchase these titles as we've always been able to? And that Microsoft can generate money through subscription service and retail purchases at the same time...this is madness!!!

[IRetrouk]

It came with every single xbox sade unit sold, these are bundle numbers, people wernt going out and buying the game in it's own, it came with their console, what that has to do with it being on gamepass or its relation to game sales is hard to understand to be honest.

[ElementX]

The game codes are in the console box, which has its own SKU number. Furthermore, the article says 1.3m physical games were sold. The SAD doesn't have physical games. I think the author is either stupid or doesn't explain himself very well. He talks physical sales then brings up bundled games, which as far as I know aren't physical, they are download titles. Which is it? At the register they ring up the box, not bundled games

*Edit*
@tim below: exactly, if they we're counting bundled games those would've sold the same or close

[battletrax]

wut

[timotim]

Doesn't that bundle come with 2 other games as well in Forza Horizon 3 and Minecraft?

[IRetrouk]

The author states that's its bundled numbers, if hes wrong then great, but how do these new sales relate to the game being on gamepass being a good or bad thing? That was my question.

[rob-GP]

@ElementX

From the article:

"Hardware bundles played a major part in the Black Friday charts and it's most explicit at No.4 where you will find Sea of Thieves - an Xbox One game that launched in March 2018. Sea of Thieves was included in all variety of bundles for the Xbox One S All-Digital console. which was on sale for between £110 to £140 during Black Friday (arguably the most aggressive hardware offer last week). Minecraft was also included in those Xbox One S bundles and that game is at No.5 (just over 500 units behind Sea of Thieves)."

Yeah, the first paragraph mentions physical games but the UK charts now report on both digital and physical games, so pretty much every copy of Sea of Thieves sold was as part of the bundles it was thrown in with. Some people will have picked it up in the sale too, but as per the article, the majority will be due to the console sales.

Also, bundles record the packaged game when sold - so if a SAD with three games was sold, all three games count as a sale as they know that console included those games. However, there were other bundles with SoT added as an extra, so they will have been put through separately and not as part of the SAD bundle, hence why the other games aren't in the top 20.

[ElementX]

Thanks for the explanation. The article wasn't very clear. I wasn't aware digital games are included, I know that NPD will disclose them if publishers participate and I know Microsoft doesn't disclose digital sales numbers. I'm not sure how things work in the UK however I figured they would probably be similar. I've searched several times and I can't find anything online that says bundled games are counted as individual sales, so who knows

[yomfweeee]

@ElementX it isn't that hard to understand.

The reason these sites don't include digital sales is because Sony/Microsoft don't release those numbers. So, they can only report on what was sold in a box. Even though it is a "digital" code, it was in a "physical" bundle... so they know a sale occurred and count it.

[rainslacker]

Assuming it doesnt include the bundled versions, it makes one wonder if people are actually informed about game pass, or if they intend to get game pass, because why buy the game if it's free on game pass?

I cant imagine enough people would just really really want to own a physical copy of the game which requires a network connection, so long term collectibility is pretty moot.

Not saying there wouldnt be some...but enough to chart at #4? That seems highly suspect for a game as old as SoT.

[djplonker]

@tim

The biggest deal in the past week on hotukdeals has been a £109 all digital xbox with sea of theieves and minecraft + 2000 v bucks

No forza.

[timotim]

Ive been trying to do some research on it (I'm in the US and cant find that bundle), I did locate a bundle with SoT, Minecraft and Fortnite though. Do you have a link for the bundle you have mentioned? Here is the one that I found.
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/...

[djplonker]

Sure here you go

https://www.hotukdeals.com/...

https://www.hotukdeals.com/...

[timotim]

Ok yeah...so the one in your link also includes Fornite. They just added on the V bucks...

"Enter three of the most compelling video game franchises with included downloads of sea of Thieves, Fortnite battle Royale, and Minecraft"

It's interesting because Fornite is not on the list. If these games are only up there because of this bundle, wouldn't Fornite also be right there with the rest of the games included? Could SoT have also benefited from the 50% off deal that was running during Black Friday as well?

[IRetrouk]

Fortnight is at 24, it wasnt in all sade bundles, sea of thieves was, along with minecraft, which is at position 5, according to the article, theres just over 500 copies difference between sea of thieves and minecraft, obviously not every single copy sold would have been a bundle, dont change the fact that that is where the majority of the sales came from.

[timotim]

@IR

The only problem I have with your theory is that their are no other bundles (All Digital or otherwise) that I could find that includes SoT, yet doesn't include Fortnite. The only way to get a All Digital bundle, or any Xbox bundle with SoT is to also get it with Fortnite. Here is all of the official bundles that Microsoft has
https://www.xbox.com/en-us/...

[djplonker]

@tim

No it only includes the battle royal mode of fortnite

https://www.game.co.uk/en/1...

that has a better description.

[IRetrouk]

It's not a theory, the author states that these sales came from being bundled, there were sade edition bundles with and without fortnight stuff, some of them only offered the battle royal mode along with some vbucks and a costume, some of them offered horizon 3, but the only two full games that came with every single sade edition was sea of thieves and minecraft, like it, dont, that's up to you, you have been shown and told countless times these are bundle numbers, even the articles author points it out, why you dont want to believe that is anyone's quess, but it is what it is🤷‍♂️

[KeenBean345]

Well the xbox one Digital with like 3 games, v bucks and an extra controller was only £150 on amazon so this doesn't surprise me. A few work friends picked it up as you can't beat that price

Looks like every company had a good black Friday in different ways

[Donnie81]

Sot is such a great game now. I hope everyone enjoys it

[moriarty1889]

SOT has become a much better game with loads of content since its launch. I wish MS would patch it and have an offline SP mode where you can still play without being connected using the content thats there. Its a fun game but I dont like games having to always be online just to play. I hope they dont make the same mistake with Everwild because that game looks like it has potential.

[iplay1up2]

I would love to play Sea of Thieves, if it had single player mode. Same with Monster Hunter.

[neomahi]

Yawn.

[Automatic79]

Everyone trying to associate Sea of Thieves with bundles sales is hilarious. Sea of Thieves did well at retail's. If the bundle deal had such an impact than you would see Sony's games i.e. Horizon, TLOU, GOW on that list.

[djplonker]

I can prove the £109 xbox with sot & minecraft was the most popular product this week on a ukdeals sharing website by quite a bit.

You can even search on there and many retailers where also selling the exact same bundle for £20 more.

P.s amazon uk don't even sell sea of theieves its only 3rd party sellers, so the most popular online retailer didn't even stock it.......

Edit: just had a look the xbox deal got voted hot over 7000 times and not a single ps4 bundle got over 1500 "heat" so microsoft were way more aggressive with their price cuts on bundles that had sot & minecraft which 90% of them did.

[IRetrouk]

Read the article, it clearly states sea of thieves sales are from being bundled with every sade edition console, it's not a bad thing at all, just not proof of gamepass having a good or bad effect on sales like some were saying, at the end of the day a sale is a sale, bundled or not🤷‍♂️

[gravedigger]

Maybe also author of this article missed PS4 games. I like how he states that PS4 sold the most games and a lot of Sony games have returned to the charts yet he doesn’t list them as “winners” with the others. Something tells me that Dring was surely bothered by Sony since favoring Wired for revealing PS5 details.

[FanboySpotter]

There's always gotta be some sort of downplay here

[djplonker]

Well the argument I seen was

"See games on game pass do sell"

Well actually no it was bundled with every digital only xbox so not many people went out and bought sot on its own, amazon uk isnt even selling it.

"But if that was true fortnite would be within 500 units like minecraft and sot"

Actually it wasnt the pve fortnite it's just some skins and v bucks

"people always gotta downplay"

?????????????

The xbox sold really well that should be the takeaway here not if an old game you can get on gamepass sold well or not on its own.

[TargusX]

Mugs game.