Metroid Prime Remastered Almost Beats Hogwarts Legacy in the UK Boxed Sales Despite Being a Digital-First Release

Despite being a digital-first release weeks ago, Metroid Prime Remastered almost claimed the first spot in the boxed UK sales charts.

Nintendo shadow announced and dropped the remaster of the original Metroid Prime in early February, and the title was released physically late month as well. Still, although initially on sale exclusively digitally for a few weeks, the remaster almost beat multiplatform title Hogwarts in the UK. As posted by GamesIndustry's Christopher Dring, Metroid Prime Remastered is the second biggest physical release of the year so far and missed out on taking the first spot last week by only 1000 units.

"The physical launch of Metroid Prime Remastered is the fourth biggest launch for the series in the UK", Dring wrote on twitter. "Launch sales are around half of what the original did in 2003. But of course, the Remaster launched digitally weeks ago. Looks like the shadow drop strategy worked."

Dring added, "Normally you can tell how a Switch game has done via its physical sales. But Metroid Prime Remastered was a digital-first release. Even so, in the UK the boxed version has done well. Missed out on No.1 by 1,000 units. Biggest UK Metroid release? Maybe.

It will indeed be interesting to see how Metroid Prime Remastered has performed digitally, and whether it managed to beat the popular Metroid Dread.

Metroid Prime Remastered is available globally now for the Nintendo Switch. Here's what we wrote about this great remaster in our hands-on article:

As for the game’s visual upgrade, Retro Studios were in a somewhat unenviable position with this project. Metroid Prime Remastered certainly looks much better than the original game, but the limitations of the Switch mean its presentation isn’t exactly cutting-edge either. Don’t get me wrong, the remaster has its striking moments and runs very well, but if you’re coming off the visual splendor of, say, the Dead Space remake, adjust your expectations. Essentially, what we’re getting is a game from four console generations ago that now looks like it's only from one or two generations ago.

Metroid Prime Remastered often feels like a game from another era, there’s no escaping that, but don’t get the wrong idea – in many ways, that’s actually a good thing. Replaying Metroid Prime, I was struck by how different its design philosophies are than most modern games. The game’s controls and mechanics are designed with simple playability as the primary concern and the game’s UI is made to be as readable as possible. 

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