NPD April 2018 Sales Results Sees Sony & Nintendo Dominating Top 10
With all of the buzz around God of War (and rightfully so), we figured it would make the top spot for April’s NPD reporting, and it did! In fact, it achieved the highest ever launch month dollar sales for a title launched exclusively on a PlayStation platform.
Riding on the success of God of War, the PS4 sold exceptionally well. NPD analyst Mat Piscella told Venture Beat:
Sony’s PlayStation 4 was the best-selling console hardware platform in April and remains the best-selling console hardware platform year to date. PlayStation 4 generated the highest April unit sales for a console since Nintendo Wii in April 2009, and the highest April dollar sales for a console since Nintendo Wii in April 2008.
So just how well is the video game industry doing this year? Venture Beat broke down the data:
Here are the numbers for April:
- Total: $823 million (up 18 percent from $699 million in April 2017)
- Hardware: $225 million (up 15 percent from $195 million)
- PC and console software: $359 million (up 13 percent from $317 million)
- Accessories: $240 million (up 28 percent from $187 million)
And here is how 2018 is comparing so far to 2017 in terms of year-to-date dollar sales:
Total: $4.24 billion (up 15 percent from $3.68 billion in 2017 year to date)
Hardware: $1.15 billion (up 14 percent from $1.01 billion)
PC and console software: $1.89 billion (up 9 percent from $1.74 billion)
Accessories: $1.20 billion (up 29 percent from $927 million)
Those are all impressive numbers and a great sign of a thriving industry. It appears all of the console makers have something to celebrate! Below are the top 20 selling games for April 2018 and you’ll notice that Nintendo has quite a few games on the list. Nintendo Labo Variety Kit seems to have made a decent splash at number 4, but keep in mind that the game is $70 and the list is based on revenue, not units sold. The other Nintendo games on the list don’t include digital sales, so it’s possible they’d rank even higher.
Software
- God of War 2018
- Far Cry 5
- MLB 18: The Show
- Labo Variety Kit
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze*
- Mario Kart 8*
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Call of Duty: WWII
- Super Mario Odyssey*
- NBA 2K18
- PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds**
- Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*
- Monster Hunter: World
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege
- A Way Out**
- Yakuza 6: The Song Of Life*
- Sea Of Thieves
- Kirby Star Allies*
- FIFA 18**
*No digital sales included
**No PC digital sales included
It’s pretty impressive that Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze charted so high based on having only two days of sales reported and the fact that it’s a port of a Wii U game. It appears plenty of new Switch owners are still digging Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as well!
[Source: Venture Beat]
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.
