Tag: NPD
News October 2020 NPD: FIFA 21 Scores First-Ever US Number One
Back of the net
The football you play with your feet beat out the football you play with your hands in the October 2020 NPD sales charts for the United States, as Nintendo’s record-breaking year quietly trundled along. The vast majority of the games in the latest US report belong to the Switch, but despite a disappointing critical response, EA...
News September 2020 NPD: Marvel's Avengers Hulk Smashes Its Rivals
Tony Hawk 1 + 2 kickflips fourth
What a strange launch Marvel’s Avengers has endured! The game has, by all intents and purposes, sold well – but it’s perhaps failed to meet the behemoth expectations put upon it by publisher Square Enix. Case in point: the title topped the USA sales charts for September 2020, securing the second-best superhero...
News Gamers Will Happily Pay $70 for PS5 Games, Argues Analyst
Market demand is market demand
The rise in PlayStation 5 game prices has been a sticky topic since it was announced, but NPD’s Mat Piscatella has argued that gamers will “happily pay” the boosted price point. Speaking as part of the Virtual Economy podcast, the analyst argued that he believes the increase can be ascribed to market demand, as...
News August 2020 NPD: EA Sports Lands a One-Two Combo on US Game Charts
In the game
While it may feel like the quality of EA Sports’ output has taken a nosedive, its sales are not exactly hurting, as the publisher has landed a one-two punch on the US sales charts for August 2020. Madden NFL 21 was ranked the best-selling title by dollar sales, with EA Sports UFC 4 sitting closely behind in second place – what are...
News July 2020 NPD: Ghost of Tsushima the Next PS4 Exclusive to Top the Chart
Sony dominance
After dominating the UK sales charts for close to a month, selling out in Japan, and surpassing 2.4 million copies sold in just three days, Ghost of Tsushima has now found itself at the top of the best-selling games chart in the US for the month of July 2020. The PlayStation 4 exclusive is now the fifth best-selling game of the year...
News June 2020 NPD: The Last of Us 2 Tops the Chart Across the US
The biggest June since 2009
Not only was The Last of Us: Part II Sony's quickest selling PlayStation 4 exclusive ever and the most downloaded title from the PlayStation Store for the month of June, it has also topped the sales chart in the US. NPD reports that Naughty Do
News May 2020 NPD: Coronavirus Impact Continues Video Game Sales Surge
Almost $1 billion
Video game sales in the United States were up an unfathomable 52 per cent year-over-year in May 2020, according to the latest NPD report. Total industry spend reached almost $1 billion, which is just short of the $1.2 billion record set in May 2008. That was the month that Grand Theft Auto IV released, but the aging Grand Theft...
News April NPD 2020: Industry Achieves New Record High As Coronavirus Sees Sales Soar
Final Fantasy VII Remake tops the charts
One of the biggest beneficiaries of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has been the video game industry, which registered its biggest ever April in the United States last month. Consumer spend reached an eye-watering $1.5 billion, which is up a whopping 73 per cent year-over-year, as families find new ways to...
News March 2020 NPD: PS4 Exclusives Strong As Switch Explodes
Sony's system up 25% year-over-year
A global pandemic is good news for Nintendo apparently, as Switch registered absurd sales figures greater than its launch. But the NPD sales report for March 2020 in the United States also includes positive news for PlayStation, as a spate of exclusive software performed particularly well on the Japanese giant’s...
News February 2020 NPD: Consumer Spending Dips in Uneventful Month
On the rocks
Consumer spending dropped by 29 per cent year-over-year, as February 2020 proved to be an uneventful month in the latest NPD sales report for the United States. According to analyst Mat Piscatella, “late cycle hardware dynamics for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as well as a lighter new release software slate drove the variance”. It...
News January 2020 NPD: Dragon Ball the Only Winner in Dry Month
Just Saiyan
Overall video game spend dropped by 26 per cent year-over-year in a dismal start to 2020 in the United States. As has been the case for a while now, hardware sales dipped dramatically, with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on the cusp of being replaced. Perhaps surprisingly, not even the younger, sprightlier Nintendo Switch could avoid...
News PS4 Exclusive Days Gone Makes the List of 2019's Best-Selling Games
Gridlock on the broken road
Sony’s been conspicuously quiet when it comes to Days Gone’s overall sales, but everything we’ve observed is that the Bend developed undead open worlder was a bit of a secret smash hit. And that’s reflected by NPD’s report on the best-selling games of 2019, where Deacon St. John’s debut landed in 19th...
News December 2019 NPD: Call of Duty, Star Wars Can't Soften Yearly Decline
Industry down 13% year-over-year
A whopping $3 billion were spent on video games in the United States last month, but not even juggernauts like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order could prevent the industry from succumbing to a 15 per cent year-over-year decline. This has been the tale of the tape all year, of course, as...
News MLB The Show 19 Is the Best-Selling Baseball Game of All Time
Home run
MLB The Show has always been a popular franchise, but the 2019 instalment is the best-selling baseball game in United States history. According to the NPD Group, which tracks both physical and digital game sales across the country, full-game dollar sales of the latest instalment in the baseball simulation series “have now surpassed those...
News To the Surprise of No One, PS4 Was the US' Best-Selling Console of the Decade
Big win
PlayStation 4’s success has already been very well documented, but just in case you needed a swift reminder: Sony’s system was the best-selling hardware in the United States for the past decade. That means no other device outsold it in the 2010s, despite the console not launching until November 2013. It’s hardly a surprise, of course:...
News November 2019 NPD: Only Juggernauts Can Outpace Death Stranding
One of the top ten Sony launches in history
Death Stranding did incredibly well for itself in the November 2019 NPD results for USA, charting in seventh position. The title could only be outpaced by juggernauts, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, various permutations of Pokémon Sword & Shield, and Madden NFL...
News NetherRealm Rules the Fighting Game Roost on PS4
Get over here
What’s the best-selling fighting game on the PlayStation 4? It probably won’t surprise you, but in the United States it’s Mortal Kombat X. Perhaps more shocking is just how much of a chokehold developer NetherRealm Studios has on this NPD published genre list, as Mortal Kombat 11 and Injustice 2 round out two more of the...
News October 2019 NPD: The Outer Worlds Stuns as Modern Warfare Expectedly Explodes
Obsidian's RPG in at second
There were reports that The Outer Worlds was off to a particularly strong start, but few could have expected the Obsidian developed role-playing game to sell quite this well: it’s finished second in the October 2019 NPD report for software sales in the United States. Only the might of
News September 2019 NPD: 2K Games on Top As Industry Declines Continue
Code Vein somehow makes top ten
2K Games’ double-billing of NBA 2K20 and Borderlands 3 jumped to the top of the USA sales charts for September, as industry spend continued to sink year-over-year due to dwindling hardware numbers. Total industry spend topped out at $1.278 billion – down eight per cent compared to the same month last year. FIFA 20...
News August 2019 NPD: Game Sales Sink to 20 Year Low as Control Misses Out
Madden still on top
Game sales sank to a 20-year low in August 2019 in the United States, with overall consumer spend falling 18 per cent year-over-year. All sectors registered declines, with Nintendo Switch once again dominating the hardware charts. The performance was so poor across the board last month that it’s actually dragged down the entire...
News July 2019 NPD: Madden NFL 20 Enters the Red Zone
Slow month for Sony overall
Console hardware sales were down 22 per cent year-over-year in July 2019, as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One continue to grow a little long in the tooth. Sony’s pricing stubbornness has allowed the Nintendo Switch to comfortably top the console charts, which is the only system to experience growth so far this year. It...
News June 2019 NPD: Days of Play Does the Business for PS4
Massive increase for PS4 exclusives
Sony’s annual Days of Play promotion has become a big part of the PlayStation calendar, with a surprising number of exclusive titles making the June 2019 NPD software best-sellers list. Discounted favourites such as Marvel’s Spider-Man, Days Gone, MLB The Show 19, and God of War all made the month’s Top 20...
News April 2019 NPD: Days Gone Lands Huge Launch, But Can't Lay a Glove on MK11
MLB The Show 19 still hitting home runs
Days Gone secured the seventh biggest Sony-published debut in US history, but still couldn’t stop the Mortal Kombat 11 juggernaut, which topped the respective sales charts for all four formats it released on. According to NPD data, the brutal brawler is already the second best-selling title of 2019 in...
News March 2019 NPD: MLB The Show 19 Sets a Genre Sales Record
The Division 2, Sekiro start strong
It was a March 2019 of hardware dominance in the United States for the Nintendo Switch, as the ageing PlayStation 4 and Xbox One continue their natural downturn ahead of the new generation. Overall industry spend for the month was down 11 per cent year-over-year, with hardware seeing the most significant decline...
News February 2019 NPD: ANTHEM Lands BioWare's Second Highest US Launch
Singing from the right hymn sheet
ANTHEM hasn’t been a complete and utter failure – well, assuming you ignore virtually everything to do with the game itself. The title topped the February 2019 NPD charts in the United States, registering the second highest launch for a BioWare title of all time. It’s only outpaced by Mass Effect 3, which you...
News January 2019 NPD: Kingdom Hearts III, Resident Evil 2 Top Sales Charts
But industry down 19 per cent year-over-year
The first NPD result of the year is in, and the industry slipped to a 19 per cent year-over-year decline in the United States – despite titles like Kingdom Hearts III and Resident Evil 2 putting in a decent performance. The drop can be directly attributed to slipping hardware and software sales, as...
News December 2018 NPD: PS4 Pipped at the Post by Smash Bros and Switch
But year-on-year gain for Sony's system
It took the last month of the year for the Nintendo Switch to topple the PlayStation 4, but Sony’s system was forced to settle for second place in the United States’ hardware hierarchy for 2018. While the PS4 had been leading NPD for the vast majority of the year, the Japanese giant opted not to offer any...
News Spider-Man PS4 Is the Fastest Selling Superhero Game in US History
Got 'em, Tiger
In its first three months on sale in the United States, Marvel’s Spider-Man has become the fastest-selling superhero game ever. This means that it has outpaced juggernauts like Batman: Arkham Knight, and even more impressive is that the statistic does not include bundle sales. Considering that the PlayStation 4 exclusive was a part...
News November 2018 NPD: PS4 Best Seller As All Systems Shine
A bumper month
The story of 2018 has by and large been that all major systems have performed well, and that continued in November with stat-tracking firm the NPD Group reporting that all three primary platforms exceeded sales of 1.3 million units for the month. As was expected, the PlayStation 4 was the best-seller in terms of unit sales, buoyed by...
News Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Sales Unaffected by Absent Single Player Campaign
Series on target regardless
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 topped the October 2018 NPD sales results in the United States, beating Red Dead Redemption 2 and proving that the clamours for the series’ missing single player campaign were overblown by a very vocal minority. The first-person shooter – which is currently 2018’s top-selling title in the...
News October 2018 NPD: Call of Duty, Red Dead Propel PS4 to Record Month
Sony's system sets new October high
With news that Sony’s big PlayStation 4 bundle for Black Friday 2018 is selling out this November, it seems that we can safely say the system is performing as strongly as ever five years into its lifespan. And the October 2018 NPD report for the United States is yet more evidence of that, as the console
News PS Vita's All-Time US Best-Sellers Show Why Sony Binned System
Top ten's life sales equivalent to Spidey's first month
NPD analyst Mat Piscatella has released the list of all-time best-selling PlayStation Vita software in the United States, and it paints a pretty damning picture. Top of the charts is launch title Uncharted: Golden Abyss, and it’s followed by the dismal Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified and...
News September 2018 NPD: Marvel's Spider-Man Enjoys the Biggest Launch in PlayStation History
PS4 tops hardware charts
Marvel’s Spider-Man smashed records during its launch month in the United States, with the NPD Group reporting that the exclusive secured the highest launch month dollar sales for a PlayStation exclusive of all time. The title also enjoyed seventh largest debut of any PlayStation release ever, and is the third best-selling...
News NPD Reveals PSVR's Best Sellers in the US So Far
What do you reckon is number one?
We rarely get sales data specifically for PlayStation VR, so this tidbit courtesy of the NPD Group is interesting for the handful of you that care. It shows the top five best-selling titles in the United States which require Sony’s headset, meaning the likes of Resident Evil 7 are excluded. The games are ranked...
News August 2018 NPD: PS4 Can't Dethrone Switch as Madden NFL 18 Rushes Software Charts
Sacked
While the PlayStation 4 dominated the United States hardware charts five months in a row earlier this year, the Nintendo Switch kept the throne warm for a second month in August 2018. It's the third time this year that Sony’s ageing platform has fallen just short, but with Marvel’s Spider-Man reportedly ripping up the record books around...
News July 2018 NPD: PS4 Can't Make It Six Months in a Row
Still the best-selling system of the year, though
We figured that the PlayStation 4, in its fifth term, was going to make way for the newer Nintendo Switch in the NPD hardware charts this year, but it’s actually maintained its position at the top for much of 2018 thus far. A slow July means that it couldn’t quite make it six months in a row,...
News June 2018 NPD: PS4 Outsells All Current-Gen Competitors
But can't beat the NES
We really thought this would be the year where the PlayStation 4 starts to slow down a bit, but Sony’s console has continued to storm the United States hardware charts, beating all of its current-gen competitors for a fifth successive month. Amazingly, the system was actually outsold by the NES Classic in June 2018, although...
News May 2018 NPD: PS4 on Top Yet Again, Detroit Starts Strong
Another record breaking month for PlayStation
With the PlayStation 4 nearing its fifth anniversary, we had expected the Nintendo Switch to take the lead on Sony’s system in the United States hardware charts – but it’s just not happening yet. The Japanese giant’s popular platform enjoyed a fourth consecutive month in the throne in May, with...
News April 2018 NPD: PS4 Breaks Records in Staggering Month
God of War, MLB The Show 18 on fire
God of War helped propel the PlayStation 4 to a sensational April 2018 in the United States, where the system set a new software sales record for the month since data tracking started all the way back in 1995. The console – which was unsurprisingly the top-selling system of the month – also registered the...
News March 2018 NPD: PS4 Tops Hardware Charts as MLB Registers Record
Home run
Sony maintained its position atop the United States hardware charts with another impressive NPD result, outselling all other consoles in the month of March 2018. The console was buoyed by the release of MLB The Show 18, which set a franchise record during its launch month. However, Far Cry 5 unsurprisingly swept aside all competition,...
News February 2018 NPD: PS4 Wrestles Hardware Crown Off Nintendo Switch
Monster Hunter: World still killing it
The PlayStation 4 was the best-selling console in the United States for the first time since November in February 2018, with Sony temporarily wrestling the crown from Nintendo in what is sure to become a constant back-and-forth. We’re only two months into 2018, but the PS4 is now the best-selling platform of...
News January 2018 NPD: PS4 Drives Most Revenue as Monster Hunter: World Dominates
Industry up 59 per cent year-over-year
The PlayStation 4 couldn’t slow the momentum of the Nintendo Switch in January 2018’s NPD report, as the Mario maker’s latest piece of hardware topped unit sales in what was an amazing month for the United States games industry overall. However, Sony will be secretly pleased, as its system generated the...
News December 2017 NPD: Call of Duty: WWII Conquers $3.29 Billion Month
PS4 crowned best-selling console of 2017
Those people who wrote articles about the death of the console industry prior to the release of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One should hang their heads in shame, as Call of Duty: WWII just dominated a $3.29 billion month for the United States games industry. That’s up 10 per cent over year-over-year,...
News November 2017 NPD: PS4 Dominates Hardware Sales with Best Ever Month, Call of Duty Is King
Switch, Xbox One X can't hold back Sony's system
Just goes to show what we know, eh? We predicted that the PlayStation 4 would be the “worst” selling console in November 2017, drowned out by the Nintendo Switch and the Xbox One X launch. In actual fact, it enjoyed its best month in the United States ever, topping even November 2013, when the...
News October 2017 NPD: PS4 Is Still the Best Selling System of the Year
Middle-earth: Shadow of War conquers all
Despite increasingly intense competition, the PlayStation 4 remains the best-selling console in the United States year-to-date – but it’s going to be clinging on by its fingernails as we sprint towards the business end of the year. Nintendo Switch was the top platform once again for the month of October,...
News Microtransactions Aren't Stopping Big Games From Selling Well, Says NPD
Loot boxed
The conversation surrounding microtransactions has really heated up over the last few months. With recent heavy hitters such as Destiny 2 and Middle-earth: Shadow of War receiving a fair bit of criticism for the inclusion of in-game purchases, the topic's been covered by just about everyone in the media, ourselves included. But for all...
News September 2017 NPD: PS4 Leads Consumer Spend as Destiny 2 Outshoots All
Bungie jump
It’s not particularly trendy to talk about PlayStation 4 hardware sales as it continues its comfortable march to 100 million units, but even though the Nintendo Switch is starting to exert some authority on the NPD, it’s perhaps worth reiterating that Sony’s system is still faring very well as it nears its fourth birthday...
News Grand Theft Auto V Is The Best-Selling Game of All Time
In the US, anyway
Grand Theft Auto V is the best-selling game of all time, according to American sales tracking organisation NPD. Now there are some caveats here: this only applies to the United States, so there may be titles that have historically performed better – though it’s perhaps worth noting that Rockstar’s opus finished second in...
News August 2017 NPD: Uncharted Starts Strong, But PS4 Can't Topple Switch
Not bad for a spin-off
Standalone spin-off Uncharted: The Lost Legacy debuted third in the United States sales charts for August 2017 – an impressive result considering many scored the title for free as part of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End’s season pass. The side-story was beaten by Madden NFL 18 and a resurgent Grand Theft Auto V, though it’s...
News July 2017 NPD: Nintendo Switch Stops PS4 Party
But systems were apparently neck and neck
Nintendo managed to put enough Switch stock on American shelves to halt the PlayStation 4’s mini-winning streak, but both systems did well by all accounts. Leaked numbers put the platforms neck and neck, and Sony’s console is actually up year-over-year, which is a surprise. Considering that the device is...
