According to the NPD results for the month of May, Watch Dogs is holding the number one position when it comes to software sales. Overall sales for the month are considerably higher that they were in May 2013 with consumers spending $274 million just on games. This is a 57% increase from last year when they only spent $175. What’s more impressive however is the fact that the industry as a whole has seen an increase of 800%. According to the report “May 2014 launches sold 800 percent more in dollar sales than May 2013 launches did their respective launch months.” Watch Dogs has an important role to play in all of this and has contributed to both the sales of new games and to those of new consoles. Unsurprisingly, Ubisoft was “number one corporate publisher for the month.”
But we can’t give all the credit to just one successful title, there were other new releases that sold well last month. “After six months of declines, software rebounded in May 2013 driven by new launches such as Watch Dogs, Mario Kart 8, Wolfenstein: The New Order, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and Kirby: Triple Deluxe,” NPD analyst Liam Callahan explains. The company only tracks new physical copies of games sold within the U.S. so no digital sales or games sold in other countries. This means that the results might not be 100% accurate, but they are enough to give us an idea about how the industry is doing. With that in mind let’s take a look at the top 10 best selling games of last month.
1. Watch Dogs (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PlayStation 3, PC)
2. Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)
3. MLB 14: The Show (PS4, PS3, Vita)
4. Wolfenstein: The New Order (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3, PC)
5. Minecraft (360, PS3)
6. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (360, PS3, PS4, Xbox One, 3DS, Wii U)
7. NBA 2K14 (360, PS4, PS3, Xbox One, PC)
8. Titanfall (360, Xbox One, PC)
9. Kirby: Triple Deluxe (3DS)
10. Call of Duty: Ghosts (360, PS4, PS3, Xbox One, PC, Wii U)
On the hardware side, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are all continuing to have good sales. Unfortunately the NPD doesn’t reveal statistics for individual consoles, but they did mention that Sony is still in the lead. “May 2014 marked the fifth consecutive month that Sony’s PlayStation 4 led hardware sales,” the company said. Combined hardware sales generated $187 million last month, that’s an increase of 95% compared to May 2013’s $96 million. These results are solid proof that the gaming industry is one of the fastest growing industries out there and I hope this growth will not slow down anytime soon. Stay tuned for more news and updates.