U.K. sales-tracking firm: ‘Titanfall gives a colossal boost to Xbox One’

The hype for Titanfall culminated in a titanic launch last week for PC and Xbox One, and early reports reveal it is performing well at retail.

Titanfall is already the top-selling game of 2014 — at least in the U.K. — according to chart-tracking firm GfK. Publisher Electronic Arts’ sci-fi shooter has already outsold FIFA 14 by a 2-to-1 margin since the start of the year in that country. Microsoft, EA, and developer Respawn all have a lot riding on the success of the title, which has human-sized soldiers fighting with and against giant walking tanks (be sure to read our review).

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“Titanfall also gives a colossal boost to Xbox One hardware sales with a huge jump of over 96 percent [week over week] thanks largely to the new Titanfall bundle, [which includes] a download token of the game, accounting for over 70 percent of all Xbox One hardware sold this week,” reads a GfK statement. “The new property is a welcome sight [for EA]. [Its] last No. 1 title [in the U.K.] that wasn’t a FIFA stretches back more than a year when Crysis 3 held the crown in the first week of March 2013.”

GfK collects its sales data electronically through a point-of-service system at retailers. So this data will only reflect software sold at physical stores. EA also released Titanfall for PC on its Origin download store as well as Xbox One’s digital-distribution network. We’ve reached out to EA and Microsoft to see if the shooter is selling this well in other territories.

Titanfall isn’t just important for EA. Microsoft needed that boost to its console sales. Xbox One debuted alongside Sony’s PlayStation 4 in November, and the PS4 has continually sold better. At $400, Sony’s system is $100 less expensive than the Xbox One, and that’s helped the PS4 reach more than 6 million units sold around the world. The Microsoft device is sitting at around 4 million.

In February, the PS4 once again outsold the Xbox One in the U.S., but by a slim margin. Gamers actually spent more money on Xbox One, but that it’s possible that the PS4 was supply constrained due to Sony finally launching it in Japan.

While Titanfall is pushing Xbox Ones, Sony will have a major exclusive of its own in March. The open-world action title Infamous: Second Son hits the system on Friday. While it doesn’t have the buzz of Titanfall, it is the biggest major exclusive for PS4 in 2014.