August NPD Sales Results: Nintendo Switch #1 Selling; GTA V Breaks Records
NPD has reported its results for the month of August and for the most part it’s about what we expected. As usual for that month, the debut of Madden took the top spot in sales. The crazy thing is that Grand Theft Auto V continues to chart, and last month it came in at #2! Keep in mind this game has been on the market for 49 months and has made 41 top 10 appearances. That’s 16 more times than any other title and it’s now the all-time best-selling game by revenue and units. We wonder what would happen if it came to the Switch?
Speaking of the Nintendo Switch, it was once again the top selling console for the month. That means for 4 of the past 6 months on the market the Switch has been the best selling system in North America. The other two months went to the PlayStation 4, and for the year the PS4 still leads in sales.
Total video game sales were down 2% when compared to last year. Every category was down except accessories, which saw a 10% boost thanks to sales of Xbox One S controllers, headsets, and Switch Pro Controllers.
As for trends, the shooter category has declined and the racing genre has seen tremendous growth (80% higher in 2017 versus 2016). Games like Forza Horizon 3 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe have contributed heavily to these sales and we expect Forza Motorsport 7 and Gran Turismo Sport to help propel racing games even higher.
The Top 20 best selling games for August 2017 were:
| Madden NFL 18 | 1 | Electronic Arts | |||
| Grand Theft Auto V | 2 | Take 2 Interactive (Corp) | |||
| Uncharted: The Lost Legacy | 3 | Sony (Corp) | |||
| Splatoon 2 | 4 | Nintendo | |||
| The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild | 5 | Nintendo | |||
| Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege | 6 | Ubisoft | |||
| Mario Kart 8 | 7 | Nintendo | |||
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered | 8 | Activision Blizzard (Corp) | |||
| Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy | 9 | Activision Blizzard (Corp) | |||
| Overwatch | 10 | Activision Blizzard (Corp) | |||
| Injustice 2 | 11 | Warner Bros. Interactive | |||
| Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands | 12 | Ubisoft | |||
| Minecraft | 13 | Microsoft (Corp) | |||
| For Honor | 14 | Ubisoft | |||
| Call of Duty: Black Ops III | 15 | Activision Blizzard (Corp) | |||
| Agents Of Mayhem | 16 | Deep Silver | |||
| Forza Horizon 3 | 17 | Microsoft (Corp) | |||
| Battlefield 1 | 18 | Electronic Arts | |||
| NBA 2K17 | 19 | Take 2 Interactive (Corp) | |||
| UFC 2 | 20 | Electronic Arts | |||
[Source: GamesIndustry.biz]
Craig has been covering the video game industry since 1995. His work has been published across a wide spectrum of media sites. He’s currently the Editor-In-Chief of Nintendo Times and contributes to Gaming Age.
It’s depressing that GTA:VC runs better on my years old smartphone than it does on my less than a year old Switch. Meanwhile Shin Megami Tensei V is blowing my mind with how good it looks. Like someone at Atlus clearly sold their soul to make SMTV be one of the best looking games on the system.