It’s been revealed that Shenmue III from Ys Net and Deep Silver did not quite manage to capture an audience when it released in the U.K., only managing to land the number 17 position on the UKIE Game Charts.

DSO Gaming picked up the news from Metro, who reported that Shenmue I and Shenmue II remasters sold better than the crowdfunded Shenmue III. Perhaps people preferred nostalgia to a sequel?

In any case, the game did not do so well in the U.K., debuting just within the top 20 but not coming anywhere near the top 10, which are listed below.

1 Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare (PS4/XO)
2 Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PS4/XO/PC)
3 Pokémon Sword (NS)
4 FIFA 20 (PS4/XO/NS)
5 Pokémon Shield (NS)
6 Luigi’s Mansion 3 (NS)
7 Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (NS)
8 Minecraft (NS)
9 Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 (NS)
10 Fortnite: Darkfire Bundle (XO/PS4/NS)

Worse yet is that Shenmue III isn’t even doing well in its native country of Japan.

The Ys Net-made adventure only managed to move 17,857 units during its first week of launch in Japan, as reported by Gematsu.

To give you an idea of what the top moving game was, Pokemon Sword & Shield collectively did over 382,000 units during that same week.

Shenmue III came in just behind Luigi’s Mansion 3, which did 23,000 units that week.

It did manage to beat out Death Stranding, though, which only moved 12,520 units during its third week out in Japan.

Even still, I can only imagine the sales for Shenmue III dropping even further with each passing week, most likely due to the way Deep Silver handled many of the game’s launch logistics, such as signing an exclusive deal with the Epic Games Store instead of launching on simultaneously on both Epic’s store and Steam.

Matters weren’t helped when Deep Silver made the refund process for Shenmue III an absolute headache for backers after initially denying them refunds, and cheaped out when it came to the backer cases for the PS4 version. Overall, the sales seem to reflect the general dissatisfaction many gamers had leading up to its release thanks to the publishing antics that helped tank the game’s overall market appeal.

(Thanks for the news tip Medo Medo)