February 2020 NPD Sales Results
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, video game sales have once again seen a massive decline year-over-year. The usual culprits are to blame: lack of new software and looming next generation consoles. The entire video game industry for February 2020 was down 28% when compared to February 2019. Total sales were $1.4 billion.
As if to illustrate the lack of new software releases, the entire top 20 best selling games of the month of February is comprised of games not released in that month. This rarely happens and is a testament to the power of new products. Had The Last of Us 2 not been delayed out of its February release date the month would have most certainly fared better. To put things in perspective, according to NPD analyst Mat Piscatella the best-selling new release of the month was The Yakuza Remastered Collection, which ranked as the 33rd best-selling game of the month. Ouch!
Even though the Nintendo Switch was once again the best selling system by both numbers and retail dollars, the hardware sector was down 34%. Some supply constraints in hardware like the original model of Switch as well as the looming next generation consoles have contributed to this trend.
Looking at the top 20 software rankings for February of 2020 some might find it surprising to see The Division 2 rank so high. This is mostly due to its massive promotional price drop to $4.99 at retail and $2.99 digitally. Still, since the rankings are dollar-based and not unit-based, this means it had to sell a bunch of copies to rank so high. Also of note is Ring Fit Adventure, which ended up being the second best-selling game on the Switch for the entire month.
February 2020 Top 20 Selling Games
These charts are sorted by dollar sales — not number of units sold.
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2019
- NBA 2K20
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot
- Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
- Mario Kart 8*
- Ring Fit Adventure
- Madden NFL 20
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
- Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
- Minecraft#
- Luigi’s Mansion 3*
- Red Dead Redemption II
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*
- Pokemon Sword*
- Just Dance 2020
- FIFA 20
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege
- Need for Speed: Heat
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe*
* Digital sales not included
^ Steam sales not included
# Minecraft digital sales on Xbox and PlayStation included
[Source: VentureBeat]
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.
