NPD tracks physical sales at retailers, but it also gets digital data directly from publishers. But not every company participates. For example, Nintendo doesnt share its first-party sales, and Activision Blizzard does not provide its Battle.net sales.
These charts are sorted by dollar sales not number of units sold. 1.Madden NFL 20** 2.Minecraft*** 3.Grand Theft Auto V 4.Fire Emblem: Three Houses* 5.Super Smash Bros. Ultimate* 6.Super Mario Maker 2* 7.Mario Kart 8* 8.Mortal Kombat 11 9.Tom Clancys Rainbow Six: Siege 10.Astral Chain* 11.Marvels Spider-Man 12.The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild* 13.Red Dead Redemption II 14.Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII** 15.Age of Wonders: Planetfall 16.Super Mario Party* 17.Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order* 18.New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe* 19.The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan 20.Assassins Creed: Odyssey
*Does not include digital sales **Does not include PC digital sales ***Minecraft digital sales include Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but not other digital sales.
You can probably tell by looking at the list above that August was not a great month for software sales. Minecraft, a 10-year-old game, was the second-best seller of the month. And 2013s Grand Theft Auto V was No. 3. August had no new releases that made a dent unless you count Madden, which technically launched in NPDs July tracking period.
And NPD confirmed that this was the worst August in terms of software sales in more than 20 years.
Dollar sales of tracked video game software fell 22 percent in August versus a year ago, to $257 million, said Piscatella. This represents the lowest total software sales in an August month since August 1998, which was $234 million.
Overall, 2019 is still on par with last years software sales, but that is due primarily to the newer of the three major console platforms.
Ouch. Astral Chain and Control deserved better. ---