Kirby Air Riders launched to respectable reviews on Thursday and it has now been revealed that the charming game entered the UK physical software charts at No.12. The UK is the biggest game market in Europe and the Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch software has been making quite the impact here. Sadly we don’t have the full chart data available, but there’s usually a few Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 games in the top ten.
UK charts: Kirby Air Riders debuts at No.12
Yeah that’s not great but not unexpected. It’s a fine game and I’m enjoying it but it’s definitely not for everyone. Anecdotally the test ride or whatever it was called, seemed to have the opposite effect and people felt it wasn’t worth picking up. Expected it to at least make the top ten but we are in the very competitive season with stuff like EA FC and Call of Duty selling a lot, as well as Mario Kart World and 8 Deluxe still the more attractive and safe option for people
Just watching the Direct would have told you it was at best a $15 game. The original flopped because it sucked, adding an additional button and a few gimmicks wouldn’t change that. Right now its mostly riding off the fact that the general audience today doesn’t even know of the original.
I guess Nintendo expected “critical acclaim” and better sales everywhere seeing how they marketed the heck out of this game, maybe the game did better in Japan and USA.
With everything they showed us, nobody with a modicum of intelligence could honestly say this game should be priced above $15. There’s such a lack of engagement when playing, and that’s the reason the original flopped too. Okay there’s “content”, 700+ things to unlock or something like that, but when the majority of that is useless, static content it’s not worth counting, especially when the game is two buttons of engagement total with nothing else to offer.
We should get chart data monday or Tuesday, and it’s done incredibly well completing with some extreme heavy hitters, it wasn’t an easy time for release, but it hasn’t done badly, considering it’s only been out for a few days. Many people will have put money on pre ordering Metroid Prime 4, it’s a tough situation, but Kirby is fighting very well in the charts.
Is Flying Star AI? Susy Baka!!