Early Black Friday UK sales data shows where Pokémon Scarlet/Violet, Sonic Froniters & more stand

We don’t have the full weekly sales data for the UK just yet, as that usually doesn’t show up until later today or earlier tomorrow. What we do have is some details on how Black Friday impacted the sales of the heavy hitters, and as you might expect, some shoppers swarmed game retailers to pick up big-name titles.

Early results show that Sonic Frontiers got a lot of attention for Black Friday. Even though Sonic Frontiers just released a few weeks back, SEGA saw fit to cut the price to spur on Black Friday sales. It appears this decision was a smart one, as Sonic Frontiers sales were up 203% with an average Black Friday price of £32.

What’s even more shocking is the fact that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe saw an even bigger Black Friday boost. Even though this game has been available for 5 years now, sales were up 226% due to Switch bundles. Along with that, early reports show that multiple Switch games saw sizable boosts due to Black Friday, but we’ll have to wait for specifics.

It’s also worth quickly mentioning FIFA 23, as Black Fridays sales pushed the game to rise 95% week-on-week. As you might expect, this data doesn’t break down the difference between regular FIFA 23 and the Legacy Edition on Switch, so we don’t know just how high the Switch version climbed.

Black Friday was a boon for Switch games in general, with multiple titles seeing notable bumps during the shopping frenzy. Nintendo Switch Sports enjoyed a sales rise of 138%, Animal Crossing: New Horizons climbed 85% and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild jumped an unbelievable 426%, most of which was spurred on by an Amazon bundle.

Finally, we have Pokémon Scarlet/Violet. Nintendo wasn’t running any discounts on these titles, and this is the second week they’re both being sold, so a drop from launch was expected. Pokémon Violet and Scarlet sales are down 64% each in the second week, which is roughly what analysts expected. For comparison’s sake, Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl were down around 58% in week 2, and Pokemon Legends: Arceus was down 72%.