Marvel’s Wolverine Tops the UK Charts With Sony’s Best Physical Launch of 2026, and PlayStation’s Discs Are on Borrowed Time

Marvel’s Wolverine has claimed the UK’s No.1 physical retail chart spot for the week ending September 20, giving Sony its best boxed PS5 launch of 2026 outside of two much bigger exclusives. The timing is almost too on the nose: the milestone lands just as PlayStation’s physical disc business enters its final stretch, with Sony’s plan to stop producing game discs altogether now under sixteen months away.

A Chart-Topping Week for Logan

Per GfK/Chart-Track data reported by Christopher Dring of The Game Business, Insomniac’s clawed exclusive knocked Onimusha: Way of the Sword off the top of the UK’s all-formats physical chart, with Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave and LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight rounding out the top three. It’s a strong showing for a game that launched five days earlier, on September 15, and it comes despite a critical reception that’s been shakier than Insomniac’s Spider-Man games, as we covered when the reviews first landed.

Marvel’s Wolverine official key art

Third-Best PS5 Launch of a Loaded Year

Zoom out from this single week, and Wolverine’s physical performance tells a slightly different story. Dring’s own breakdown ranks it as the third-biggest PS5 boxed launch of all of 2026, trailing only Resident Evil Requiem and 007 First Light, but still ahead of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced. As he put it:

“Marvel’s Wolverine is the No.3 biggest PS5 UK launch of 2026 (boxed sales).”

That same breakdown puts Wolverine’s physical debut at nearly three times the size of Death Stranding 2’s, a separate comparison from the global digital sales numbers we reported on last week. Against Sony’s two biggest recent first-party hits, though, it’s a step down: about 60% lower than Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s UK boxed launch, and marginally behind Ghost of Yotei’s.

The Full UK Physical Chart

1. Marvel’s Wolverine (PS5)
2. Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave (Switch 2)
3. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight (Switch 2)
4. The Blood of Dawnwalker
5. Mario Kart World (Switch 2)
6. Pokemon Pokopia (Switch 2)
7. Onimusha: Way of the Sword (PS5)
8. Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (Switch)
9. EA Sports FC 26
10. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Game of the Year Edition

Just outside the top ten, Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter debuted at #14 overall and #5 on the PS5-specific chart. Looking at the platform breakdowns, Wolverine now leads the PS5 chart in Onimusha’s place, The Blood of Dawnwalker still tops Xbox Series, Tomodachi Life leads Switch, and The Witcher 3’s Game of the Year Edition sits at No.1 on the boxed PC chart.

A Record Launch With an Expiration Date

Sony announced back in July that it would end physical disc production for new PlayStation games starting January 2028, citing a broader industry “shift away from physical discs to digital.” The cutoff covers every new release going forward, on both PS4 and PS5, though games that already have a disc version before that date aren’t affected and will keep being sold as normal. Digital purchases through the PlayStation Store and retail digital codes continue unchanged.

PlayStation’s July 2026 announcement confirmed physical disc production for new games ends in January 2028

An unverified rumor briefly circulated in August suggesting Sony might delay that cutoff, but industry figures dismissed it quickly, and Sony has kept preparing for January 2028 as planned. Wolverine’s chart-topping week won’t change that math either. A single strong boxed launch, even a record one for the year’s PS5 lineup, isn’t the kind of number that moves a company off an industry-wide shift it’s already banking on. For now, though, UK shoppers are still very much buying Logan’s claws in a box.

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Picture Source: PlayStation, PlayStation Blog