Despite its inclusion in Game Pass on day one, Starfield had a strong physical sales debut in the UK.
On Sunday, GamesIndustry.biz journalist Christopher Dring shared UK chart data, revealing that the Xbox and PC exclusive was the best-selling boxed title during its launch week.
Dring was able to say that Starfield isn't the biggest physical launch of 2023 in the UK, having sold less than Hogwarts Legacy, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, Resident Evil 4, Final Fantasy 16, and Dead Island 2. Exact sales figures are not disclosed as part of the UK chart.
Starfield, however, differs from those games in that it is only available on PC and Xbox, the two platforms with the highest share of digital sales. It will probably be one of the biggest sales launches of the year if Starfield follows a similar digital sales trend to Blizzard's Diablo 4, which sold a comparable number of boxed games in its release week.
In terms of player numbers, Starfield's Game Pass launch may also have been the biggest of the year.
According to Dring, "Starfield is No. 1 in the UK boxed charts, which is impressive." Although it won't be the biggest physical release of 2022 (behind Hogwarts, Zelda, Star Wars, Resi 4, FF16, and Dead Island 2 on that list), it is significant because Diablo 4 was a huge digital success.
Starfield will be similar because it is available on the two most popular digital platforms (PC & Xbox), he continued. Notably, Diablo performs satisfactorily on the PS5. If you include Game Pass, this launch could be the biggest of 2023.
Dring continued to speculate that those who purchased hardware bundles or the game's collector's edition may have contributed to the strong physical sales performance in the UK.
The 'physical' Starfield Premium Edition Upgrade, which is simply a box with a download code that allows Game Pass subscribers to play the game early and get future DLC, debuted in the UK charts at number seven last week.
Starfield surpassed one million concurrent players on the day of its release, according to Microsoft's head of gaming Phil Spencer, who didn't elaborate on how this was split between PC and Xbox.
As a result, the game was dubbed "the biggest Bethesda game launch of all time" by the official Starfield Twitter account after more than six million players had completed the game's first official day of release.