Call of Duty: Black Ops II retained the top position in the UK video game charts in December 2012 despite strong competition from Ubisoft’s newly released Far Cry 3.
The Treyarch-developed first-person shooter remained at No. 1 for a third consecutive week in the UK all-formats chart published on 3 December 2012. Far Cry 3 entered directly at No. 2 following its UK release, while FIFA 13 held third place.
Black Ops II had originally entered the UK chart at No. 1 following its November 2012 launch and continued to dominate during one of the busiest periods of the year’s release calendar.
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Far Cry 3 Debuts at No. 2
Far Cry 3 provided the biggest new challenge to Black Ops II that week.
Ubisoft’s open-world shooter entered the UK chart in second place, ahead of several major releases already competing for Christmas sales.
The top five consisted of:
- Call of Duty: Black Ops II
- Far Cry 3
- FIFA 13
- Hitman: Absolution
- Assassin’s Creed III
Other major games in the chart included Just Dance 4, LEGO The Lord of the Rings, Halo 4 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted.
The arrival of Far Cry 3 was particularly significant because it launched into an unusually competitive period. Black Ops II had been released only weeks earlier, while FIFA 13, Assassin’s Creed III, Halo 4 and Hitman: Absolution were all still performing strongly.
Despite that competition, Black Ops II remained the UK’s best-selling game for another week.
Black Ops II Continued Its UK Chart Dominance
Black Ops II’s position at the top was not a brief launch-week success.
The game remained No. 1 again the following week, extending its run at the top of the UK chart to four consecutive weeks.
Its commercial performance eventually went considerably further than the December chart position suggested. Call of Duty: Black Ops II finished 2012 as the UK’s best-selling video game of the year, ahead of FIFA 13 and Assassin’s Creed III.
That result confirmed the strength of the Call of Duty franchise in the UK during the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 era.
Far Cry 3 would continue to challenge Black Ops II during the Christmas period, but the December 2012 chart represented another major week for Treyarch’s shooter during what became one of the strongest commercial launches of the year.
