For the first time in about a month, Horizon Forbidden West isn't the UK's best-selling physical PS5 game. That honour belongs to Stray, the sci-fi adventure game about a domestic cat in a cyber-city that won hearts earlier this year. With the arrival of its boxed release, the game has pounced on a number three debut, which is a great result for a relatively small title.

Aloy's big cross-gen sequel moves down from second to eighth, its biggest dip in quite a while. The Last of Us: Part I is also on the decline, moving from 10th to 12th. Elsewhere, Grand Theft Auto V is right back in the mix, moving up from ninth to fifth. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is bouncing back too, up from 18th to 10th. Finally, new release The Diofield Chronicle hasn't debuted particularly strongly, arriving in 17th position.

Here's the latest top 10 in full.

Having grown up alongside PlayStation, Stephen has developed an eclectic taste in video games and a wide knowledge of the medium, from small indie gems to the biggest AAA blockbusters. Ever hopeful that the Burnout series makes a miraculous return.

Splatoon 3 sales rocketing just before the splat fest doesn't surprise me, amazing game and fully deserved.

Made up for the Dev's on Stray, really enjoyable indie game which deserves it's praise. I can't see anything moving Splatoon from top spot for some time now, I read it sold over 3 million copies in Japan alone in the first 24 hours!! Crazy but happy days it is loads of fun!

Considering Nintendo hardly do sales, and even years old games are still pretty much full price - it's amazing how the top ten is absolutely littered...more money than sense some people 😄

Enjoyed Stray's puzzles. Gave me paws for thought.

It seems Sony has replaced the Horizon Forbidden West bundle with a FIFA 23 bundle so that'll probably stay in the #1 spot for even longer from next week's charts.

https://www.game.co.uk/en/playstation-5-console-fifa-23-2893721

Good game, that I thoroughly enjoyed at the time, but honestly a few months later it is mostly forgotten. Took this article to bring it back to memory. Purrhaps just getting old.

@ironcrow86 The thing is there are tens of thousands of new Switch owners every week. If you were one of them you would want some of those games, they're great and well worth it even at full price. I'd posit that almost every new Switch owner, especially in the child and young adult demographics, is going to buy one of the following: Mario Kart, Minecraft, AC: NH etc. They are evergreen. Good for Nintendo frankly.

Also remember this is the UK PHYSICAL chart. While Nintendo don't release exact figures often they only just sold over 50% of their games digitally a couple of years ago, and that was in part due to lockdown, it may have gone back below this. Meanwhile Xbox and PS were around 80% at the time and rising. i.e. It's not an apples to apples comparison.

"Horizon Forbidden West isn't the UK's best-selling physical PS5 game"

PS5 supplies have obviously dried up again.

@themightyant yeah that's one thing I'm definitely not disputing - but come on...5 and half years old and breath of the wild is still knocking around the £50 mark??

@ironcrow86 Is BOTW not worth £50? Why is that crazy?

Why should it get cheaper if it's still in high demand and selling? Many products, outside gaming, that stay in demand that long don't drop much. Of course i'd prefer if it did drop in price but also understand why it doesn't need to follow suit if the market is happy to buy.

On the flipside I know I can buy a Nintendo game on day 1 (they're usually only £39.99-£49.99 at retail) and it's unlikely to drop much in price. It incentivises Day 1 purchases for me unlike things like Ubisoft which will be 50% off within 6 months, and you get buyers remorse.

On the plus side they hold their value well so I can take my time and still sell them on at a high price when i'm finished, it works both ways.

@themightyant yeah good point that. I am used to Sony fp titles dropping in price shortly after release, so i am being stubborn and refusing to pay full price for the last of us, whereas if i thought it wasnt going to drop in price i would probably have picked it up by now..

I am finding Sony are generally trying to be better at holding prices this gen mind - returnal has generally stuck at or around its launch price

Nintendo has always been good at not devaluing their first party stuff through discounts. They know that those families with multiple switches for different children etc are all going to want their own copy of mario kart for example, so where is the incentive to drop the price

@sanderson72 no. PS5 is being bundled with FIFA23 now. Sadly.

@Rob_230 Sony definitely seem to be trying to follow Nintendo first party this gen. Been chatting with @NEStalgia and others about that a lot recently. Minimal digital discounts.

Sadly the difference, for me at least, is that at £70 PS games are at the upper end of my budget (or around £60 at retail). I will only happily pay that amount for a few special games. Whereas something like Metroid Dread I picked up for £35 Day 1 at retail.

Different price points make all the difference.

E.g. Was waiting on Returnal and Demon's Souls to drop, until PS++

I wish the term "indie title" didnt exist as for a lot of people it tends to imply "sideline inferior release" when infact most indies ive played over the last couple of years have excelled above and beyond the standard AAA releases. Only the method of publishing and distribution defines an indie (independent) title. The same theory also applies to Indie music (which was portayed as always guitar based music) and Indie cinema (portrayed as always arthouse or noir by some) Anyway had to get that off my chest lol, loved Stray and great to see it doing well

@themightyant i think sony will struggle to hold prices as more ps5 only titles release. much easier when its only a handful, and i guess with going more digital only we are going to be screwed as consumers with Sony keeping the store artificially high.

good to see steelrising, valkyrie, diofield as around 50 tho.

@stvevan Agreed. What a lot of people forget is they tried a lot of this with the PS4 initially, albeit to a lesser extent. For the first year or two, when the more dedicated gamers upgraded, there were very few large first party digital discounts. This changed over time.

Moreover physical games were often much closer to RRP. E.g. Most PS4 games were meant to be £60 and sold nearer to that in the first few years after launch. After a few years the stores started competing more on price and many games could be had for £40-£50 at launch. That made the +£10 RRP price hike to £70 feel FAR more in reality than the £10 RRP increase it was on paper. In real terms is was nearer £20 - £30.

I was hopeful the same would happen after a few years as ubiquity hits, but supply has impacted that and almost two years into this gen there's no sign of it. Yet.

Well deserved. Stray was excellent. ♥🐈😊

despite being very hyped before launch, I found the game to be simply middling to good and unlikely to be played again or even remembered particularly fondly compared to others.

glad it came straight to Extra though, perfect type of game for it.

@Smiffy01 loving my indie games. as well as being a case of simply enjoying them a lot than AAA quite often, it also comes down to pricing. I don't buy many games at all now, especially post Extra, but I'm far more likely to drop fifteen or twenty quid for a decent indie than spending three times that for AAA

Wow, third week at the top. I don't think Splatoon 2 ever hit #1 physically in the UK.

@Gamer_Guy Yip same here, been absolutely lovin Rollerdrome, eyeing up Prodeus next

@stvevan I've been wondering/hoping the same. This high priced game thing is easy when there's a handful of major releases a year industry-wide. But going into 2023 all these big games will be cannibalizing each other's sales. It's going to be pretty hard to keep charging high prices, artificially limiting sales volume, while keeping up expected high sales volumes. But Sony could be an outlier really aiming for the Nintendo model where their franchises are "so premium" they're worth full price or buy something else. Popular though their franchises are, though, they'll never play in the same field as the pop culture sensations of Pokemon, Mario, Smash, etc. I don't think they have the same latitude to be snobby Nintendo has. The HFW discounts give me some hope, though that game is special since as a console bundle, only a limited subset of PS5 owners even has a need to buy a copy.

@themightyant I ended up paying $60 Digital for Dread and regretted it. It was a decent game, but not worth the money. If you could get it for that price day 1, the UK market is more radically different than I thought!

But yeah, Nintendo aside, I'll just be buying a lot less games at launch. And buying less at launch means I'll probably buy less total as after waiting a year + for sales, the newness wears off a lot of games and you don't need them so much anymore. Milking customers for more money may work in some market segments, but in others it just suppresses sales. Nintendo has an easier go for it, because nobody buys a Nintendo for third party games. Most people buy a PS for third party games.

@NEStalgia I was sold on the Switch the moment SMT V showed up at the pre-launch showcase. I also purchased by 3DS in anticipation of Etrian Odyssey IV.

I'm also quite certain more than a few 3DS and Switch consoles sold on the strength of their Monster Hunter games.

@ralizah what id do for a PS5 version of a monster hunter game!

@nestalgia had sony gone for 50... perhaps 60 quid games they may stand a chance of holding value, but 70 is a big ask, i dont feel Nintendo could hold that price, even for Zelda and Mario

@ironcrow86 the games are new if you haven’t played them yet….but dang, I can’t believe how long and strong Mario Kart is going….

@stvevan I'd be shocked if World 2 isn't revealed next year.

@Ralizah Ok, by "nobody" I should have specified "nobody except Ralizah and other ultra-weebs" Plus everyone in Japan that buys for MonHun. I mean, yeah, I was sold by SMTV too...but.... (and sadly ended up not liking it.)

@stvevan Yeah, and, while Sony's not the only company doing $70, they're the only company doing $70 that doesn't throw things into sales shortly after launch. The other companies priced it, IMO, primarily to have a higher margin on the wholesale physical pricing, and to give themselves a bigger range and steeper curve on sale pricing. Sony's doing it because they actually think that's a realistic starting price. Inevitably someone will chime in with "but things need to cost more/games used to cost more", which misses the point that $70 isn't actually the price they get from physical games, the wholesale is way lower.

BUT the terrifying thought is Nintendo being Nintendo will surely go to $70 with Switch 2, because they're Nintendo and the industry's doing it and they know they can get away with it too. And their games will never drop a penny below $64.

@NEStalgia £35 isn't even an anomaly really. Most Nintendo games are usually available sub £40 physically at launch if you shop around. It's basically PS1 prices physically which is why, as i've said before, I refuse to go all digital. It's usually £10 - £15 more every game, even more sometimes on PS5.

Dread was actually available at several places even cheaper if you really looked see this link and scroll to the bottom, it was available sub £30 in several places pre-launch, including one at £26.99 that was an error, but they honoured it. I missed those but £35 was all good regardless.

@themightyant Wow, so different there. In the US, ESPECIALLY for Nintendo, prices are absolutely fixed. It's $60 physical, $60 digital. You may be able to save $5 with a Gamestop monthly subscription coupon. On occasion Walmart might do $5 off. A Nintendo game is full price unless you buy used, period for the most part. Physical, digital, doesn't matter.

When Switch launched, Amazon and Best Buy were duking it out. Amazon had $10 off on pre-orders of games. Best Buy countered with a subscription service for $35/yr or something that had 20% or something off on all games (not just pre-orders.) They both discontinued that a year or so after Switch launch. I built up my PSVR physical library on that deal. I actually had Bayonetta on preorder still with Amazon because I preordered it on E3 announce so it's still that price in my cart, but I may actually cancel because I'm not sure I really need to have it even at $50 right now.

Since then (2018 or so), if it's Nintendo, it's $60. You may be able to get it $55. On SUPER rare occasion $50. Period. Till the end of time. If Sony's going that route I'll probably buy Sackboy, Ratchet, Horizon and little else from them unless it's something super amazing they come up with, or just wait for it all on Plus Premium. Obviously the Koei/Square exclusives aren't subject totally to Sony pricing and are more likely to have real sales more often.

It always amazes me on these mostly UK forums when the physical vs digital arguments come up and people are like "it's so much cheaper to buy physical" and in the US I'm just looking like "since when?" Used, sure. Old games, sure. But the same is kinda true on digital. It's not that digital is better here, it's that physical is worse. There's really no incentive to buy physical unless you're into the buy used and sell the game cycle. Same price, less convenience, and all you get is the ability to sell it for peanuts to GameStop or private list it on ebay.

Edit: The only way some people can save on physical is with subscription rewards or things like store credit cards that happen to be offering a percentage kickback in categories or certain months, or coupons or something like that, but it's more of a convoluted loyalty scheme for the store in general rather than anything with games.

GTA 5 is a beast of a product. Such insane staying power.

@NEStalgia Makes a lot more sense why we each have the stance we have on digital v physical.

Though I wish PS5 games would get the same sort of discount. You have to really shop around, and get in at the right time, to find better deals. But even then cheapest TLOU pt1 was 'just' £53.85 as opposed to £70 digital. But that was a one off and short lived.

@themightyant I know you can't just convert currency in your head and it's done, but I'm truly amazed at the prices in the UK for PS stuff. Nintendo stuff sounds downright cheap there and it's ridiculously expensive here. PS is even more ridiculously expensive, but at least sales eventually happen and most of the "big" content isn't first party outside Nintendo, while it sounds ridiculous over there. I honestly can't understand why PS is actually successful at those prices! You'd think it'd have sank to #3 ages ago on account of being ridiculously priced. It also probably explains a ton about Jim's leadership and decision making given he comes from the UK office where fleecing people seems to work.

@NEStalgia UK's not that bad to be honest. Don't even dare look at pricing in Australia, Brazil etc. makes UK and Europe look cheap by comparison. Plus many other territories where relative cost is so high compared to average wages.

It's nice to see people actually buying the game. Especially with it being available on a subscription.

It just shows how much people are willing to buy into new games with PlayStation no matter their affiliation. Support the industry, while also owning a piece of what's been crafted. I'll be checking it out soon.

@themightyant Oh yeah, I'm aware of pricing in those markets. It's surreal. Though I know places like Brazil are much bigger piracy markets for a reason....AUS and the like though, I really don't know how it manages to work there, the real market for gaming has to be fairly small at prices like those.

I'm still waiting for Stray to go on sale. I've waited this long so I figure I might as well wait it out. It's not that expensive at full price, but it's kind of a principle thing.

@riceNpea Well, that explains the drop in sales then!

@Grumblevolcano ahh damn thought that might be the new PS model then, was gonna change from my day one

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