One of the biggest fighting game releases of the year is already here, and it’s only January. We’ve only had a few days, but Tekken 8 sales figures are already coming in. While it’s only one specific metric, there’s one area where Tekken 8 has been outselling even its biggest competition. In UK sales, Tekken 8 has already overtaken the launch figures for Street Fighter 6
Tekken and Street Fighter are two of the biggest fighting games. There’s good reason to compare the two. In this launch metric, it looks like Tekken 8 has been particularly strong. In one country at least, it’s already pushed ahead with higher opening weekend sales figures. The Tekken 8 sales have been over double SF 6’s figures. Does this mean we can expect a similar trend as we learn more about the player count for the two games?
Source: Bandai Namco
Tekken 8 Sales Are Double Street Fighter 6’s Launch in the UK
In the UK, fighting games are fairly popular. It seems like the Tekken series is the country’s favorite though. The UK physical sales for the launch weekend have been almost double the initial Street Fighter 6 sales. Along with MK 1, SF 6 is probably the closest comparable game to Tekken 8. It’s the newest instalment in the long-running series, with a big life ahead of it as a competitive fighter.
Are these numbers a random quirk of this exact measurement though, or more of an indicator of what’s to come? Since we’re only looking at UK sales figures, we can make some decent comparisons. This number only affects physical sales. While this makes figures like this impressive, just under 89% of games sold in the UK are physical. This essentially means we’re seeing just over a 10% slice of the sales figures for the game. Not the whole picture. It’s possible that the physical vs digital sales skew is different for Street Fighter rather than Tekken.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that different fighters are more possible in different locations. Tekken 7 similarly topped the charts for UK sales back when it was first released. This could suggest the series as a whole is more popular here. SF 6 had a noticeably sluggish launch in the country too.
These latest Tekken 8 sales figures are definitely good news for anyone hoping for greater variety in fighting game esports in the UK. With physical sales figures an increasingly less meaningful part of a game’s total player base though, we’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out if this is a trend or just a quirk.
