In a huge return to form, F1 2015 has zoomed into first place on the UK charts, as Codemasters’ F1 series takes the top spot for the first time since 2010. It’s also clear that a lot of people were waiting for this year’s entry to make the move to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, with the launch week sales up by 367% compared to last year.
F1 2015 also managed to knock Batman: Arkham Knight down a notch, but Batman’s still selling well with roughly half the sales of its own launch week. It manages to stay ahead of LEGO Jurassic World in third and The Elder Scrolls Online before the top five is rounded out by the hardy perennial that is Grand Theft Auto V, but with F1 2015 the only big new release, much of the top 20 is the same or very similar to the last few weeks.
| LW | TW | Title | Publisher |
| 1 | F1 2015 | CODEMASTERS | |
| 1 | 2 | BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT | WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE |
| 2 | 3 | LEGO JURASSIC WORLD | WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE |
| 3 | 4 | THE ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE | BETHESDA SOFTWORKS |
| 5 | 5 | GRAND THEFT AUTO V | ROCKSTAR |
| 4 | 6 | THE WITCHER III: WILD HUNT | BANDAI NAMCO ENTERTAINMENT |
| 7 | 7 | MINECRAFT: XBOX EDITION | MICROSOFT |
| 10 | 8 | MINECRAFT: PLAYSTATION EDITION | SONY COMPUTER ENT. |
| 9 | 9 | CALL OF DUTY: ADVANCED WARFARE | ACTIVISION |
| 11 | 10 | DESTINY | ACTIVISION |
| 8 | 11 | FIFA 15 | EA SPORTS |
| 12 | 12 | DYING LIGHT | WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE |
| 26 | 13 | DISNEY INFINITY 2.0 | DISNEY INFINITY |
| 14 | 14 | FARMING SIMULATOR 15 | FOCUS HOME INTERACTIVE |
| 16 | 15 | HALO: THE MASTER CHIEF COLLECTION | MICROSOFT |
| 13 | 16 | PAYDAY 2: CRIMEWAVE EDITION | 505 GAMES |
| 15 | 17 | SPLATOON | NINTENDO |
| 6 | 18 | YOSHI’S WOOLLY WORLD | NINTENDO |
| 22 | 19 | WWE 2K15 | 2K SPORTS |
| 19 | 20 | TERRARIA | XBOX 360 CLASSICS |
Source: UKIE
camdaz
Bernie will be pleased, shows there’s still a big following for F1 in the UK. He’s just got to worry about the rest of the world.
hornet1990
Ah, but is the UK following growing or also shrinking with the rest of the world?
Unfortunately we don’t have sales numbers so it’s difficult to gauge, but just because an F1 game sells more than any other doesn’t really mean anything, since it was probably only bought by a tiny fraction of those that make up the UK F1 following.
I’m an F1 fan – I’ll be there at the final race in Abu Dhabi for the third time in November – but I didn’t buy the game because Codies have burnt me before, and I refuse to support the Murdoch empire (and indirectly Bernies greed) by paying for Skys F1 coverage. The fact I’m willing to pay the ever increasing (!) cost of attending an F1 event shows a certain amount of dedication, but I know plenty of people who since the switch to Sky have switched off and no longer follow it or only casually. That doesn’t bode well in the long run, even in the UK.
Avenger
Yeah, the game sales say very little. The official figures for past F1 games shows that sales have dropped from the high of 2010 to a low figure in 2014, and I’d hazard a guess that its partly to do with notion of each game being recyclyed in content. F1 2015’s high is little surprising with the jump in generation, so not so much representative of F1’s popularity, but hopefully it’ll attractively cover licensing costs and give codies a boost for next years game.
hornet1990
Seem to recall seeing somewhere recently that only 2010 was commercially viable and it’s been losing money for codies since…
I enjoyed 2010 but it had some annoying issues. 2011 I picked up cheap but that was worse and that was my last (although I did try the 2014 demo).
Watching the fallout from each version it appears to me that it’s not so much the recycling (FIFA et al get away with the same) but the fact they seem to break things that weren’t broken and not fix the old issues or any new ones they’ve introduced. Looking at some of the videos of the issues in 2015 is just laughable, especially when you see things that were also issues in 2010!
It also always seems that it’ll be next years installment that’ll fix everything… given the above I wouldn’t hold my breath!
All a far cry from F1 97 sadly – absolutely loved that on my PS1! Maybe it’s time for the franchise to go to another developer, although it does seem to be a poisoned chalice so I’m not sure who would want it, or who could afford the license!
Avenger
I really enjoyed F1 Championship Edition by Studio Liverpool. Codemasters haven’t done too bad on the whole, but they are for me notorious for have little problems with their game code or engine, and nearly never ever fixing them. There are performance bugs in DiRT Rally which have been there in all other EGO 3.0 powered games on PC, but no signs that they’ll be fixed.
beeje13
According to the fan survery, 50% of respondents said they no longer follow races live (because they can’t, in alot of countries there is now zero free to air coverage). I hope cvc and Bernie see this and reconsider their approach. It should be common sense that viewing figures will drop when it’s behind the paywall.
hornet1990
@beeje13
Yeah but big money is involved so all common sense goes out of the window, I mean just look at the EU and Greece…