New Releases Dominate NPD November 2021 Charts, Hardware Sales Dip Due to Supply Constraints

November 2021 was a month dominated by multiple major new releases, and unsurprisingly, many of them enjoyed strong performances in the US. With the full NPD charts for the month having been released as well (via GamesBeat), we have further details on that front. 

Call of Duty: Vanguard was the best-selling game of the month, as new Call of Duty releases tend to be, but where past games in the series have instantly become the best-selling games of the year, Vanguard has failed to do so, currently sitting in second place on those charts, behind Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. 

Fellow shooter Battlefield 2042 was the second best-selling game of the month, and has become the sixth best-selling game of the year. Following it are Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, while Forza Horizon 5 comes in at No. 4. The other two new releases in the top 20 are Just Dance 2022 at No. 11 and Shin Megami Tensei 5 at No. 16. SMT5 and Forza Horizon 5 have both become the fastest-selling games of their respective franchises in the US to date. You can check out the full software charts below.

The performances of these new releases shouldn’t come as a surprise, especially considering their global performances up until this point. Forza Horizon 5 has amassed over 10 million players, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl sold over 6 million units worldwide in their first week, and Battlefield 2042 is said to have sold over 4.2 million units worldwide in its first week. 

Things on the hardware front are much less solid. NPD analyst Mat Piscatella reveals that the Nintendo Switch was once again the best-selling console of the month in terms of both, unit sales and dollar sales, while the Xbox Series X/S came in at second place. All consoles on the market, however, suffered due to significant supply constraints.

Hardware dollar sales in the US in November 2021 fell 38% to $883 million as compared to November 2020. In fact, that number is the lowest it’s been for the month of November since November 2016, all of which is attributable to the supply constraints in place for consoles. 

*Digital sales not included