We usually don’t go too in-depth regarding each month’s top sellers, but this one seemed a bit interesting for a few reasons. For one, first-in-franchise fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us managed to snag the top spot in United States retail sales according to NPD data cited in this post on CVG.

If nothing else, it shows that Injustice had solid-enough a premise and reviews to resonate with consumers, so much so that it managed to unseat former top-seller from March, BioShock Infinite. That’s doubly impressive considering that BioShock came out at the tail-end of March, meaning that as word of mouth and good reviews spread after its launch, it was certainly possible for the game to keep the streak alive in April. I guess people like to be street-fighting superheroes more?

In fact, BioShock even lost out to Dead Island: Riptide, which was the number two seller in the US despite the general consensus that it was not very good. And then CoD: Black Ops II, a title that launched last year, was number four. Ouch. Here’s the full list:

1. Injustice: Gods Among Us
2. Dead Island: Riptide
3. Bioshock Infinite
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
5. Defiance
6. Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon
7. NBA 2K13
8. Skylanders Giants
9. Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins
10. MLB 13: The Show

[Via CVG]

A post on Gamasutra from yesterday reports the latest numbers from sales tracking firm NPD, and the results for the Nintendo Wii U aren’t looking too hot. The stats cover video game hardware and software sales in North America for the month of January, the second full month of the Wii U’s retail availability.

According to the post, the Wii U’s sales are 38 percent lower than the Wii’s from the same period of its launch, having moved “somewhere between 45,000 and 59,000 units for the month.” That’s pretty lousy considering it’s the first new console from any manufacturer in six years. At the same time, it’s important to consider a few factors that explain (not excuse) the console’s lackluster performance.

For one—January. After the big holiday rush, fewer people are out to make a big purchase, especially if the hardware doesn’t have a nice little post-holiday price drop. The Wii U is going to stay at its current price at least until the next holiday season in a bid to compete with the other consoles.

For another—the economy sucks, especially compared to the economic climate as compared to the Wii’s launch. Things are, simply put, very different now than they were back in 2006. More people are out of work, there’s far less disposable income to go around, and so the purchase of a gadget like the Wii U is far less enticing when you’re trying to make a mortgage payment.

Finally: games. There are some solid titles out for the Wii U, but no one’s going to claim that any of them are reason enough to buy the system. The GamePad functionality is intriguing and has tons of potential, but no game has managed to come out to really make it shine. New Super Mario Bros. U is a ton of fun, but it’s still more or less the same old game. ZombiU had a lot of innovations, but, according to reviews, other issues kept it from really achieving greatness (the reliance on the over-played zombie theme and lack of a recognizable license couldn’t have helped either). Rayman Legends was supposed to be pretty amazing—but now that’s been delayed until September, and is no longer exclusive.

The Xbox had Halo, PlayStation had Uncharted and God of War, among others. If the Wii U had launched with a revolutionary Mario game, something that could’ve really demonstrated the power of the new device…shit, even a new Wii U Sports with the golf functionality that’s been hyped in the hardware demos—then we might’ve seen much healthier sales.

The fact that the best games Nintendo’s talking about are coming out for the 3DS is an unfortunate sign of the way the company seems to be working. The 3DS was suffering through similar problems: a price-cut and the release of really exciting, exclusive games is what drove hardware sales up, finally. Now that the console’s got a healthy install-base, lots of cool looking games are coming out. The new Mario & Luigi title looks like it’ll make great use of the touch-screen, not relying solely on the 3D visual gimmick that no one really ever cared about. I should point out, Nintendo announced that they’d be focusing pretty hard on the 3DS this past holiday season, though why they’d focus on a different piece of hardware amid a huge console launch is anyone’s guess. The 3DS’s sales are pretty great right now, so it seems to be paying off.

I’m confident Nintendo will manage to bring out some great software to really knock people’s socks off. But based on what we’ve seen so far, that day might be farther off than we’d like it to be.

Via Gamasutra

A post on Game Informer today reports the latest sales data released from NPD, the consumer research group that tracks retail sales throughout the United States. While there are some big winners, the overall outlook isn’t so great for the video game industry: apparently October saw a 25 percent drop of sales year-over-year, sinking from $1 billion in sales to $775 million. Sure, $775 million is a tremendous amount of money, but that means that there’s $25 million worth of hoped-for revenue that didn’t show up. The result of that kind of decline is likely budget cuts and/or layoffs, so if we haven’t already seen them happen, get ready.

But in the meantime, there’s some good news for Firaxis’s rebooted XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which moved 114,000 units—a pretty respectable number considering the fact that XCOM is hardly a household name and the niche brand of gameplay the title provides. Bethesda’s new IP, Dishonored, did even better, moving 460,200 units. Not bad at all! Silver lining, people.

Via Game Informer

While it’s not setting the world on fire Mass Effect style or anything, it looks as though Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, should be able to get at least one more sequel under its belt if sales data from its first two months of release are anything to go by. According to a post on Joystiq today, Amalur has sold 410,000 copies since its release in early February, selling a healthy 80,000 units in March.

David Riley, a spokesperson for the North American sales tracking company, NPD, that provided the data, said that the above-noted number is “an impressive figure for just two months, no matter how you slice it.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if we heard about a new installment in the Amalur franchise within the next couple of months. What say you, Machinimen and Machiniwomen? Would you pick up a sequel? Are you enjoying DLC? Or would EA be better off devoting resources elsewhere?

Via Joystiq

In all of the uproar and falderal about Mass Effect 3’s ending, data about the game’s sales has been somewhat hard to come by—until now, that is. On Friday, Joystiq reported that, according to North American sales-tracking group NPD, Mass Effect 3 sold 1.3 million physical units for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360—a pretty impressive number.

The post offers sales data from Mass Effect 2’s release for the sake of comparison, pointing out that ME2 sold over half a million on Xbox 360 during its first month of release—while Microsoft reported that Mass Effect 3’s Xbox 360 sales were 943,000.

Of course, while these numbers are nothing to sneeze at, Electronic Arts is SNEEZING AT THEM. According to a statement given to Joystiq from EA, the NPD figures fail to account for digital sales on Origin and PlayStation 3, all of which make for an even higher, as-yet unrevealed figure for the game’s first month of sales:

“We think the monthly NPD reports are a very poor indicator of the industry’s performance given the proportion of digital sales – including digital downloads via Origin, DLC, mobile and social games and much more – that are not captured in their reports. Taking these reports as an accurate snapshot of the industry today is a dangerous assumption.”

Wow. Touchy, guys. If you wanna get all huffy about NPD’s numbers, then give us some damn numbers of your own! Personally, I thought 1.3 million was pretty good. But hey, what do I know?

Via Joystiq

We’re still a few days (or even a week) away from official sales numbers for North America and Europe for Sony’s PlayStation Vita console, but Japan’s numbers for the week ending February 26 don’t look so hot. Over the last few weeks, the Vita’s been declining in sales by the thousands in Japan, and last week it slid lower than ever before, resting at a paltry 11,186. The PSP beat it yet again, selling 15,928.

Think about that: nearly 16,000 Japanese gamers decided to drop money for a system that launched in 2004.

It may have something to do with the number one game in Japan from that week: Tales of the Heroes Twin Brave from Namco Bandai, which, I guess, is popular enough to drive sales of an entire system.

As per usual at this point, the 3DS still holds the number one spot for hardware sold last week, coming in at 76,322, a number that’s almost seven times higher than the Vita’s sales. And, again, that’s for a system that’s now about a year old, versus the brand-spanking new Sony system.

But, in a lot of ways, this is all old news, since the thing’s been struggling mightily since its launch in Japan. What about North America and Europe? As noted above, Sony hasn’t released anything too specific, aside from saying that they’ve hit 1.2 million system sales worldwide. NPD, which is widely regarded as the best source for North American sales data, has also yet to release any data about the system’s first week(s) on sale outside of Japan.

But VGChartz has come up with their own numbers that don’t paint a totally rosy picture for the system so far. The site claims that the Vita has 25 percent less in sales during its North American launch than did the 3DS, saying it’s “one of the weakest launches for a portable in the US,” factoring in, it says, the First Edition bundles that were sold a week prior to last week’s official release date. VGChartz also claims that the Vita has exceeded launch sales of the 3DS in Europe. But, PocketGamer notes that the Vita’s sales in the UK have been “around one quarter” of the 185,000 unit sales the PSP achieved when it launched there back in 2005.

PocketGamer quotes its unnamed source about the sales news:

“It’s disappointing, sure, but we all saw it coming… Realistically, I think a lot of people can see it’s technically a great system, but people just don’t have the cash to shell out for the same game twice. A lot will be waiting for a true system seller before taking the plunge, or, more likely, be happier continuing to pay 69p for dozens of mobile games. The market has changed.”

However, and let’s please keep this in mind, VGChartz doesn’t have a great reputation for accuracy on the web, I understand. Apparently the site has been found to be less than accurate on occasion, and won’t release the sources of their data. Not only that, but PocketGamer doesn’t name sources either. So let’s take those last paragraphs with a grain of salt, and wait until we see what NPD has to say.

Via Andriasang, VGChartz, and PocketGamer

The NPD group has announced via their official website that they’ve reached an agreement with Walmart, in that the mega-retailer will now provide point-to-sale information and data on video game sales.

For years, the NPD group has been responsible for the upkeep and tracking of sales across a variety of industries. They’ve done a particularly impressive job with video game sales tracking, a service very welcomed by publishers and game industry folk alike.

Unfortunately, without a company like Walmart remaining absent from these sales figures, the reports were sometimes lacking. There was no accurate way of telling how many copies of games were sold at Walmart stores, both online and local. Now that Walmart and NPD have reached an agreement, sales projections should be much more reassuring.

NPD President and CEO Karyn Schoenbart mentions the importance of Walmart in compiling these information reports:

 “This agreement is truly a game changer for NPD and for the industry. With Walmart data, we will be able to provide our clients with world class information and solidify our leadership position as the premier source of market insight in our industries. We look forward to offering our clients the best information ever for understanding their customers in order to drive better decisions and grow their businesses.”

This has been your one super serious game industry business article for the day. Now go read about The Last of Us and the pretty new screenshots we posted, they’re pretty darn spectacular.

It wasn’t too long ago that financial analysis group, NPD stopped reporting numerical sales figures of every game sku in exchange for a top ten sellers list. Now, the group is further tightening their knowledge sphincter by asking analysts not to divulge confidential figures to the media, and to remove media members from their mailing lists.

It’s NPD’s right to keep their data private, so you really can’t hate ‘em, but with how much fuel they used to provide to the flame wars with their sales figures, I can’t help but feel a certain void in my beloved internet. Oh well, their numbers aren’t relevant anyway.

[via GamesIndustry.biz]

NPD has released a list of the highest ever grossing game titles in the US, and Guitar Hero III lands on top, followed by four more Activision games. The list tracks gross revenue of all non-pack-in games (i.e. not Wii Sport with a Wii), since 1995. The list does include bundle packages, such as the $200 plastic guitar packs associated with the rhythm genre — which is why three of the top ten grossers are music games. Finally, gross revenue does not mean profit, just the total amount paid for the products over time. Here’s the list:

1. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock — $830.9 million
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops — $787.4 million
3. Wii Fit (including Balance Board) — $736.6 million
4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 — $713.6 million
5. Rock Band — $670.7 million
6. Wii Play (including Wii Remote)
7. Guitar Hero World Tour
8. Wii Fit Plus
9. Mario Kart Wii (including Wii Wheel)
10. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

And the breakdown: Activision dominates the list with five of the top ten grossing games, followed by Nintendo with four of the top ten, and Viacom snuggly in the middle with Rock Band. Not surprisingly, a majority of these games are game/accessory bundles, which significantly increase gross value. What is surprising is that since Guitar Hero III released on October 28, 2007, it has taken less than four years for the franchise to decline from producing the industry’s highest grossing game ever in the US, to being no longer financially viable.

[CNBC via GamesIndustry.biz]

In the same week that EA said using market research firm, NPD Group’s data was a “misrepresentation of the entire industry”, the group has responded by acknowledging their shortcomings and assuring customers that plans are in the works to revamp the information they supply. Unfortunately, they said something very similar in October 2010.

NPD analyst, Anita Frazier:

We continue to progress those plans, but at this time we’re not changing anything with regard to what we’re reporting. Until we have something new to announce in terms of our reporting, we will continue to report on new physical retail sales on a monthly basis. This represents about 60-70 percent of the consumer spend on the industry. Quarterly we will release a total for our estimate on the consumer spend on content outside of traditional retail and that includes used game sales, full game and add-on content digital downloads, subscriptions, rentals, mobile apps and social network gaming.

Once its plans come to fruition, NPD hopes to provide a monthly report on total consumer purchases across all video game distribution methods, however, there’s no clear time frame as to when all this will take effect. Frazier said “Non-physical sales represent the ‘wild west’ to the industry, and it’s going to take time for those involved in that space, particularly the bigger players, to get their arms around what a digital point of sale service would look like. But as digital grows, the need in the industry for insight and transparency into the larger picture will only make that need more urgent.”

As the industry presses on into a digital frontier, NPD is struggling not to look obsolete. Frazier said “I think the industry is going through a period of unprecedented transformation, and with any transformation of this magnitude, there is bound to be confusion and misunderstanding.” The plan to provide the digital sales data their clients demand includes a “grass roots outreach so that everyone is on the same page,” and publishers can once again be confident in business decisions based on quantifiable evidence. Once NPD is able to reliably track digital sales, we may even start to see big box retailers feeling more comfortable with digital platforms.

[via Joystiq]

The video game industry had nearly $3 billion in sales in the US in November. That’s up 8% from last year and marks the best November on record. It might even make up for some lackluster sales earlier in the year.

According to NPD, the Xbox 360 was easily the best selling console of the month, selling 1.37 million units in the month. It was driven by some serious demand for the Kinect. Shoppers turned out in droves during Black Friday, snapping up the motion device at a furious pace.

Game-wise, Call of Duty: Black Ops fragged the competition into the ground. The game sold 8.4 million units for the month, ranking it in the top 10 best-selling games of all time. 2nd and 3rd place went to Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Just Dance 2 respectively.

via Reuters

Hardware and software sales numbers are now available from the NPD group, unsurprisingly revealing that Madden NFL 11 claimed the number one and two spots in the top ten. What’s slightly more surprising is that the Xbox 360 cinched the top hardware sales for the month, and Nintendo’s stubbornness in software sales reaches a new high. New Super Mario Bros. (DS) and New Super Mario Bros Wii both continue to rack up sales numbers, while Super Mario Galaxy 2 refuses to stop selling.

Amusingly enough, Starcraft II didn’t make any chart, but only because it’s a PC game which (for some reason) aren’t ranked. Clocking in at over 300,000 copies sold, the game was second only to Madden NFL 11 for the month. From a broad perspective, all sales were down compared to the same period last year. Software brought in $818.9M, a %10 drop, and hardware pulled $282.9M, a %5 decrease.

Full numbers follow:

Hardware Sales for August 2010:

Microsoft Xbox 360 – 356,700
Nintendo DS – 342,700
Nintendo Wii – 244,300
Sony PlayStation 3 – 226,000
Sony PSP – 79,400

Software Sales for August 2010:

Madden NFL 11 (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360) – 920,800
Madden NFL 11 (Electronic Arts, PlayStation 3) – 893,600
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo, Wii) – 124,600
Mafia II (Take 2 Interactive, Xbox 360) - 121,600
New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, DS) – 110,400
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo)
Mafia II (Take 2 Interactive, PS3)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard, Xbox 360)
NCAA Football 11 (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360)
Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo)

[via USAToday]

Wow, that’s about 1 out of every 5 Americans, including both young kids and the computer adverse elderly, having tried a “social game”.

Even more, NPD says that 35% of these people never played a game before, although I find that people who say that generally don’t count computer solitaire.

The key figure to me is that 10% say that have spent real money playing those titles. That’s a much higher number than I anticipated. It goes to show that even if we think social games are not really games, they can certainly have the potential to be moneymakers.

via Gamasutra

The July NPD numbers are here and for the first time in nearly three years the Xbox 360 reigned supreme as the top selling console of the month by moving 440,000 units. The launch of the redesigned console combined with slowing sales of the Wii helped propel Microsoft to the front. The last time the 360 had this spot was September 2007, which is when Halo 3 launched. For all the numbers and a look at the software side of things, hit the jump.

U.S. Hardware Sales July 2010:

1. Xbox 360: 443,500

2. Nintendo DS: 398,400

3. Wii: 253,900

4. PlayStation 3: 214,500

5. PSP: 84,000

On the software side of things, both versions of NCAA Football 11 topped the charts. However, it’s worth mentioning that the PC sales are not included in the NPD’s monthly break down and that StarCraft 2 sold over 720,000 copies in last four days of July alone. Maybe it’s time the NPD Group starts factoring in PC games?

U.S. Software Sales July 2010:

1. NCAA Football 11 (Xbox 360), 368,000

2. NCAA Football 11 (PS3), 298,000

3. Crackdown 2 (Xbox 360), 208,800

4. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii), 193,000

5. Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (DS), 141,700

6. Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360)

7. Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Wii)

8. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS)

9. New Super Mario Bros Wii (Wii)

10. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360)

The NPD group released numbers today showing that digital sales of games on the PC platform were almost equal with retail sales in 2009, accounting for 48% of unit sales and 36% of dollar sales. Given that digital sales have yet to be included in monthly and yearly sales numbers from NPD, this should chum the waters for the roving PC zealots out there. Aside from fanning console war flames, the lack of digital reporting can also explain the troubling decline in revenue in the game industry (especially when considering revenue from games like Farmville).

NPD estimates that reports may have overlooked $20 billion in digital revenue in the industry, which would go a long way towards correcting the image that the video game industry is in decline. The irony here is that many analysts call for developers to find unique ways to generate additional revenue, except that those methods generally involve digital sales, which wouldn’t be counted towards NPD revenue totals anyway.

In a Gamasutra analysis, they estimate that even with the overlooked $20 billion factored in to industry revenue, growth would still remain flat between 2009 and 2010, so while reporting digital sales won’t suddenly make the picture rosy, it’ll be a good deal less crappy.

[via Gamasutra]

As it turns out, people like consoles that don’t melt down into magma slag after a year or two (or so we’re promised). The Xbox 360 Slim prompted a surge in sales for the hardware, nearly doubling the units moved by increasing sales 88% in June. Microsoft tooted a number of their own horns by saying “retail demand for the new Xbox 360 250GB console remains high, and retailers continue to order as many units as Microsoft is able to supply. Collectively, Microsoft has also heard from retailers around the U.S. that Kinect and its related games are a top priority this holiday.”

Sure, provided you forget the fact that purchase intent is actually low for the Kinect. Some fancy marketing will probably change that, however.

[via IndustryGamers and 1UP]

Well thank god for that, right? I mean it’s not like I could walk into any store at any time since launch and buy a PlayStation 3 without issue, no sir. Those danged shortages were the real problem behind PlayStation 3 sales. Yep. Not the lack of a beefy library (which it now has) or an obscenely high price point (which has now come down). Nope, shortages.

Which is why now, thanks to increased sales in no way related to the fact that the PlayStation 3 has awesome games and a better hardware iteration in the PlayStation 3 Slim is entirely due to the fact that shortages have been fixed. They would’ve had these sales figures all along, you see, if only it weren’t for the pesky shortages. Accompanying an NPD release showing an 85% increase in hardware sales over June 2009, a Sony spokesperson relayed the excellent news that “PS3 inventory issues have been resolved and June 2010 marks the 11th consecutive month of year on year growth for the platform.” Well that’s great to hear.

[via IndustryGamers]

NPD released scads of sales figures from May 2010 as they are wont.  Though software sales increased by 3.5% from 2009, hardware sales dropped through the floor, declining 20%.  This regressed the dollar revenue of the industry as a whole by 5% from the May 2009 figures.  Note that these numbers are strictly retail, and don’t account for online transactions through the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, World of Warcraft Subscriptions, or Steam.

The figures also reveal more interesting tidbits, such as the fact that the PlayStation 3 has captured a good deal of market share revenue away from the Nintendo Wii, leaving the three consoles at a nearly perfect three way split.  This doesn’t mean that Wii owners have bought PlayStation 3s, mind you, but merely that the PlayStation 3 is now a larger part of software sales.

The full article is full of more numbers and graphs, and lord knows the internet loves those.

[via Gamasutra]