Mario Golf is at the top of the UK boxed charts for the second straight week, and could well make it three in a row before it's done.
Mario Golf: Super Rush has followed in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart's footsteps this week. The Switch game managed to make it back-to-back weeks at number one in the UK boxed charts. This year that has been no easy task as new releases continue to come at us thick and fast, although last week was actually a rare week off on that front.
In fact, as highlighted by GamesIndustry.biz, there was only one new entry in the entire top 40. Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance at number 23. The D&D title may have fared slightly better had it not been released on Xbox Game Pass. That meant the majority of physical sales were on PS4 and PS5 since anyone with a Game Pass subscription can currently play it for free.
Last week's biggest riser was Legend Of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The Switch game's physical sales in the UK have been rising gradually each week ever since the trailer for its sequel debuted during Nintendo's E3 Direct last month. That has culminated in Breath of the Wild re-entering the top ten. It joins five other Switch exclusives in the top ten.
Mario Golf stands a decent chance of holding onto the top spot for one more week. After that, we may well see two Zelda games in the top ten, providing Breath of the Wild's sales surge continues. Skyward Sword HD comes to Switch the week after that and currently seems like the favorite to dethrone Super Rush. F1 2021 should also perform well in the UK that week.
This chart doesn't account for digital sales, which is likely why Switch games tend to dominate it most weeks. The last year, in particular, has attracted more older and casual gamers to Nintendo who are far more likely to buy a physical copy of a game rather than download a digital one. Nevertheless, Mario Golf has performed about as well as Nintendo could have hoped for considering it's a pretty niche spin-off.