NPD News

News: PlayStation 3 Shifted 263,000 Units in North America Last Month

PlayStation 3 Shifted 263,000 Units in North America Last Month

Sales strong for Sony's system

PlayStation 4 may have stolen the headlines in February, but the PlayStation 3 proved that it’s still got the staying power to carry Sony into the next generation. GamesIndustry.biz has revealed that the manufacturer’s current flagship console sold 263,000 units in North America last month – enough to make it the...

News: December NPD: Black Ops 2 Dominates Disappointing 2012

December NPD: Black Ops 2 Dominates Disappointing 2012

The future's bleak

Staying consistent with the rest of 2012, December served up another year of decline for the North American video game industry. Despite pulling in a whopping $3.2 billion during the festive window, sales were still down 22 per cent over last year’s $4.10 billion. The year as a whole drooped by a similar margin, scooping just...

News: October NPD: NBA 2K13 Slams, Industry Dunks

October NPD: NBA 2K13 Slams, Industry Dunks

Bounce back

NBA 2K13 scored a convincing three-pointer in the latest NPD report, as the rest of the North American video games industry continued its downward trend. The sector as a whole earned $755.5 million for the period, a figure which compares negatively to last year’s $1 billion. While the figures aren't especially pleasant, analyst Liam...

News: September NPD: Hardware Sales Jump, Borderlands 2 Explodes

September NPD: Hardware Sales Jump, Borderlands 2 Explodes

Christmas is coming

Average weekly sales of both the PlayStation 3 and Vita increased in North America throughout September, suggesting renewed momentum heading into the holiday season. As has become a recurring theme, the Xbox 360 was the best selling console for the month with 270,000 units sold. Unfortunately, Sony doesn't share specific hardware...

News: July NPD: NCAA Football '13 Sprints Straight to the Top

July NPD: NCAA Football '13 Sprints Straight to the Top

Industry woes continue, though

July proved to be another desperately disappointing month for physical video game sales in North America. Overall sales in the retail sector dropped by 20 percent year over year – bringing in just $548.4 million compared to $686.3 million the year prior. Hardware sales dwindled by as much as 32 percent, with a 23...

News: May NPD: Hardware Collapses, Investors Look Away Now

May NPD: Hardware Collapses, Investors Look Away Now

Troublesome trends

Let’s get straight to the point: May was not a good month for video game sales in North America. Hardware sales were down 39% year-over-year, bringing in just $138.9 million compared to $228.8 million in 2011. Software sales also saw a decline of 16%, though the NPD puts that decrease down to fewer releases. Unsurprisingly, PC...

News: April NPD: Prototype 2 Tops, Industry Drops

April NPD: Prototype 2 Tops, Industry Drops

Heller bad

Those of you with any kind of financial investment in the North American video game industry might want to point your browser towards a more positive place. The April NPD results are in, and they don’t make for particularly pleasant reading in the slightest. Indeed, as a whole the gaming industry shrunk by a whopping 32 percent year...

News: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Flexes Its Commercial Muscles

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Flexes Its Commercial Muscles

Cash is king

New intellectual properties have it tough in today’s video game market, so it’s refreshing to see a title like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning post impressive US sales. The EA published action RPG has sold 410k units since its launch in February, with a sizeable chunk of those sales coming from the month of March. NPD’s David Riley...

News: Mass Effect 3 Sales Eclipse 1.3 Million in North America

Mass Effect 3 Sales Eclipse 1.3 Million in North America

Geth a load of that

Mass Effect 3 sold 1.3 million copies across multiple platforms in North America last month, the NPD has confirmed. The figure covers retail releases only, so digital downloads on the PlayStation Network (and EA’s own Origin) are not counted. As such, it’s safe to assume the true, ahem, Tali is significantly higher. To put...

News: Binary Domain Sold Just 20k Units in March

Binary Domain Sold Just 20k Units in March

Bad news

Binary Domain is a rare gem. Sure, it gets a bit repetitive in places, but it’s uncommon to find a new IP with a genuinely intriguing universe and likable cast. It’s just a shame the general public didn’t agree. According to this month’s NPD report, the Yakuza Studio developed third-person shooter sold just 20k copies in North...

News: March NPD: Mass Effect 3 Takes Off While Overall Sales Decline

March NPD: Mass Effect 3 Takes Off While Overall Sales Decline

Not especially pretty

Despite the arrival of several massive new releases, software and hardware sales continued their decline in North America for the month of March 2012. The latest NPD report shows that the month brought in $1.1billion in revenue, a whopping 25 percent less than the same period in 2011. Hardware, software and accessory sales were...

News: February NPD: Twisted Metal Charts as Sales Drop

February NPD: Twisted Metal Charts as Sales Drop

Call of Duty on top

Forget the concerning news about dwindling sales, and let’s focus on what really matters: Twisted Metal was the ninth best selling game in North America for the month of February. Considering the amount of scepticism that was lofted at director David Jaffe and his team regarding the relevance of car combat, we think that’s a...

News: January NPD: Absence of Big Launches Leads to Low Sales

January NPD: Absence of Big Launches Leads to Low Sales

Stuck in a rut

The latest NPD report – covering monthly spend for the video game industry in North America – didn’t paint a particularly promising picture for digital entertainment in January. Both hardware and software dropped 38% year over year, with sales down from $1.14 billion in January 2011 to just $750 million this past month. The NPD cites the lack of major new releases as the reason..

News: July NPD: Sales Drop, NCAA Football 12 Tops

July NPD: Sales Drop, NCAA Football 12 Tops

Ever since we've played video games, we've struggled to get our head around the furore surrounding EA Sports' NCAA sports titles

For those that aren't American and don't understand, NCAA stands for (as we understand it at least) National Collegiate Athletic Association. These are essentially teams — in a variety of sports — made up of college students. Even more bizarre is that the top selling..

News: June NPD: Patrick Seybold You Sly Dog, You

June NPD: Patrick Seybold You Sly Dog, You

Turns out Patrick Seybold was very crafty with his wording of inFamous 2's sales success

While Sucker Punch's super-hero adventure might have been the top selling single SKU in June, it did not manage to outsell its multiplatform rivals L.A. Noire and Duke Nukem Forever. But that's ok, we'll forgive it that. Finishing up in third on the multiplatform sales chart is a very good result for inFamous..

News: April NPD: PlayStation 3 Hardware Strong, Mortal Kombat King

April NPD: PlayStation 3 Hardware Strong, Mortal Kombat King

PlayStation 3 sales were strong in North America last month, making the current PlayStation Network outage all the more frustrating

Sony's system managed to outsell both the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS, snapping up sales of over 200k units. Microsoft XBOX 360 continued to dominate in the region. Mortal Kombat was the big software winner, selling nearly a million copies and placing a spot above..