Crash Bandicoot is back on top, and he’s bringing his karting friends and shenanigans with him as Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled debuted at the top of the UK Charts.
This should come as no surprise, as the title was basically slated for a successful release. There is an active demand for karting games right now. Add to that the fact that there is a certain nostalgia factor involved. The original Crash Team Racing was very much the PlayStation’s own take on the Mario Kart series, featuring their most popular mascot at the time.
Unlike Crash Team Racing, however, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled enjoyed a multiplatform release for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. This certainly helped it reach a far greater audience than when it was a PlayStation exclusive title, and it’s bound to stay that way; Activision holds the license for Crash as a whole, and if the successes of both Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled and Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy are of any note, the company will not stop at just mere remasters.
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled’s debut on the UK charts also enjoyed the second overall highest week one sales in the history of the franchise, a bar set previously by none other than Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy.
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is also the third best launch of the year so far, right behind the PlayStation 4 exclusive Days Gone and – surprise, surprise, another remake – Resident Evil 2. The sales for Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled are also amazing compared to other games on the list, outselling its nearest competition FIFA 19 by almost eight times as many copies.
Crash’s rival title from Sega, Team Sonic Racing, was also left in the dust. Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled sold four times as many copies in its first week. This can be attributed, however, to different audiences – there were a lot more buyers of Sonic on Switch, numbering up to 39 percent against Crash’s 16 percent, while Crash saw far better numbers on the PlayStation 4, boasting 66 percent of sales against Sonic’s 40 percent.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, the only new title that debuted this week besides Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, opened at number 17. That’s respectable at least, as the game’s already paid for by its massively successful Kickstarter campaign and the fact that it’s enjoying a very positive critical reception on Steam.
