Long Awaited Shenmue 3 Debuts at 17th in UK’s Software Sales

Shenmue 3 has debuted at 17th in the United Kingdom’s software sales. The game has been released on November 19, so it was one of the rare cases nowadays where a title gets launched at the beginning of the week and has six days on the market before sales charts are available.

Shenmue 3 has debuted at 17th in the United Kingdom’s software sales. The game has been released on November 19, but not even full week was enough for it to get in the top ten in the sales chart.

The action-adventure title from Ys.net and Deep Silver wasn’t even the best new entry last week since it was beaten by SEGA and Sports Interactive’s Football Manager 2020 (#16), as remarked in the full UK sales chart for November 25, 2019, shared by UKIE.

1. Call of Duty Modern Warfare (4)
2. Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order (2)
3. Pokémon Sword (1)
4. FIFA 20 (5)
5. Pokémon Shield (3)
6. Luigi’s Mansion 3 (6)
7. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (9)
8. Minecraft (12)
9. Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 (9)
10. Fortnite Darkfire Bundle (13)
11. Need for Speed Heat (11)
12. Just Dance 2020 (25)
13. Death Stranding (8)
14. Plants vs. Zombies Battle for Neighborville (16)
15. Ring Fit Adventure (15)
16. Football Manager 2020
17. Shenmue III
18. WWE 2K20 (28)
19. GTA V (14)
20. Super Mario Maker 2 (17)

It’s worth noting that this chart doesn’t take into account the backers of the project, which was funded on Kickstarter and Shenmue‘s official website for many million dollars, nor the digital sales, that are not related to performances at retail, so there’s a chance they might have been pretty strong instead.

Crowdfunding was also in the middle of a controversy in the last few months since at E3 2019. It was announced that Shenmue 3 for PC would have been an Epic Games Store and that Steam key would not have been provided as initially promised. Refunds were offered, but long-time fans of the saga shared their disappointment on social media and forums.

For what concerns the rest of the chart, Nintendo lost the lead with Pokémon Sword now only third, behind Call of Duty Modern Warfare and Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, but still had a strong week almost dominating the top ten.