The NPD Report for October 2016 is out and to very little surprise, DICE’s Battlefield 1 was the best-selling title across the US for the month. It helped contribute to a 36 percent year-on-year rise in software sales and that’s not including digital PC sales.

NPD analyst Sam Naji noted that popular games like Battlefield 1 along with Mafia 3 and Gears of War 4 “helped to increase software spending by one-third.”

Mafia 3 was in second place for the month followed by Gears of War 4 (which also didn’t include digital sales), FIFA 17 and NBA 2K17. The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim also did well as did WWE 2K17.

Civilization 6 managed to place in eighth place despite coming out near the tail end of the month. As if reflecting its lackluster first week sales in the UK, Titanfall 2 is in ninth place (though it also released by October end). Madden NFL 17 rounds out the top 10 for October.

Thoughts on October’s numbers? Let us now in the comments.

The NPD Group’s report for March 2016 is in, showcasing sales of physical software in the gaming industry for the United States. Tom Clancy’s The Division is on top among its competitors and experienced the best launch month for any Tom Clancy game in the series till date, sellign 40 percent more than its nearest competitor Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.

In fact, according to analyst Liam Callahan, “Ubisoft is the number one software publisher for Q1 2016” thanks to its success with The Division and Far Cry Primal (the second highest selling title for March 2016). Unit sales have increased by 130 percent and dollar sales are over 200 percent.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD saw a rather unexpected level of success, ranking third and selling more units in the first month than many first-party Wii U titles. Only games like Super Smash Bros, Super Mario Maker and Mario Kart 8 can beat it.

A Nintendo spokesperson stated that, “The game’s strong reception provides a great start to the 30th year of The Legend of Zelda franchise, which continues to be one of gaming’s most beloved and iconic series. Together with the Hyrule Warriors Legends game for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, the two titles combined to sell over 400,000 units.”

The NPD’s top ten also included Grand Theft Auto 5, EA Sports UFC 2, MLB The Show 16, Pokken Tournament, NBA 2K16, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Minecraft.

It was a relatively light month for releases in the United States for January 2016 and a result, many of the same heavy hitters from last year continued to stay in the NPD’s top 10 best selling games list.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 was in the number one spot followed by Grand Theft Auto 5, which is second place despite having first released in September 2013. NBA 2K16 was third followed by Star Wars Battlefront and Fallout 4. Minecraft continues to have a strong influence in the charts at sixth place followed by Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege and Madden NFL 16. FIFA 16 is in tenth place for the month.

LEGO Marvel Avengers is the newest entry and debuted in ninth place. Overall physical sales for software were $212.7 million which showed a 10 percent decline from the same month last year. At the time, Dying Light was the biggest new release which had “239 percent more sales” than LEGO Marvel Avengers according to NPD analyst Liam Callahan.

Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is the top-selling game in the United States for December 2015 and for the year as a whole according to the latest NPD Report. The report also states that software sales for current gen consoles are up 48 percent and down 54 percent on previous gen consoles. Thus far, 2015 has been the best for current gen sales with the PS4 having the highest third party software sales of the year.

While Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 was the highest selling game of the year, it was followed by Madden NFL 16, Fallout 4, Star Wars: Battlefront and Grand Theft Auto 5 (which saw its PC version release earlier in the year). For the month of December, Star Wars: Battlefront was actually the second highest selling title followed by Fallout 4, Madden NFL 16 and NBA 2K16.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will have its first map pack Awakening out on February 2nd for PS4 with Xbox One and PC versions out later. What are your thoughts on its sales in 2015? Let us know in the comments.

With Black Friday week and a number of high profile releases, the PS4, Xbox One and Wii U experienced their best month ever according to the NPD Report.

NPD’s Liam Callahan stated that, “November 2015 marked the best month ever in total unit sales for 8th generation consoles (Xbox One, PS4, and Wii U), surpassing sales of December 2014 (now second-highest), and November 2014 (now third-highest). 8th generation console sales rose by 22% in dollars. 7th generation sales dropped by 76% in dollars, which is sharper than the year-to-date decline of 57%.

“After 25 months, the combined sales for the PS4 and the Xbox One are 47% higher than the combined sales for 25 months of PS3 and Xbox 360 hardware sales.” Current gen hardware currently accounts for 93 percent in hardware sales, up from 9 percent during the same month last year.

Meanwhile, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 outsold last year’s Advanced Warfare to become the best-selling title in the United States for November. Fallout 4 was in second place having sold 70 percent more than Fallout: New Vegas and 9 percent more than Fallout 3 and the NPD says sales are even better than Skyrim. Star Wars Battlefront was in third place having experienced the best first month sales for any Star Wars title in history.

What are your thoughts on November’s sales for consoles and games? Let us know in the comments.

The NPD Report for August 2015, covering hardware and software sales in the United States, have been revealed. EA’s Madden NFL 16 was the top selling game for the month and this was pretty much expected according to the NPD Group’s Liam Callahan.

“Madden NFL 16…maintains its status as a key video game franchise, ranking as the third best selling franchise to date (since 1995, when NPD began tracking VG sales).”

It should be noted that while physical sales for games on Xbox One, PS4 and Wii U were up by 34 percent, Xbox 360 and PS3 sales were down by 51 percent. “New launches collectively declined by 16 percent compared to August 2014 launches. While titles that launched in June trended favorably compared to the performance of June 2014 launches, July launches also declined by 42 percent.”

Another oddity was the presence of not one but two Call of Duty titles – Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (10th place) and Call of Duty: Black Ops Combo Pack (eighth place). “Call of Duty has two games within the top 10 this month, with Call of Duty: Black Ops Combo Pack performing favorably with increased sales versus prior months. This may be related to the Call of Duty: Black Ops III multiplayer beta that occurred in late August across PS4, Xbox One, and PC.”

Other noteworthy highlights include Gears of War: Ultimate Edition at third place, Rare Replay at sixth place and Until Dawn at seventh place.

The NPD Report is now available and to no one’s surprise, the PS4 is still the best selling console in the United States for August 2015. That being said, Microsoft announced that the Xbox One “continued to gain” momentum with sales up by 26 percent compared to the same month last year.

Xbox marketing executive Mike Nichols revealed that things are set to get even better for the console due to upcoming games (like Halo 5: Guardians, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Forza Motorsport 6), the New Xbox One Experience and backwards compatibility. “We’re excited to further build on this momentum in the months to come.”

The Xbox One had a decent month in August 2015 with regards to game sales – Gears of War: Ultimate Edition ranked third in sales while Rare Replay earned sixth place. What are your thoughts on the “momentum” that the Xbox One is building? Let us know in the comments.

After a rather disheartening 2013 where many questioned the overall viability of the Wii U in the console business, Nintendo came back with one smash hit after another in 2014. The latest NPD Report revealed that Wii U hardware sales are up by 10 percent year on year while software sales are up by an incredible 90 percent year on year.

This was mostly due to the release of Super Smash Bros. Wii U which sold 710,000 units in both retail and digital. The other surprise success has been the Amiibo figurines which have notched up sales roughly equivalent to those of Super Smash Bros. Wii U. It should be mentioned that Link is the best-selling figure till date followed by Mario and Pikachu.

The Nintendo 3DS continues to do well with a 40 percent increase in year on year software sales thanks to Pokemon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby which sold a combined 1.5 million units in roughly 10 days (both games released on November 21st). Super Smash Bros. 3DS also stands at 1.5 million units over its lifetime having release in October.

The NPD Report for February 2014 is out and the news is good for hardware sales across the board, especially with the Wii U. Nintendo’s console was aided by the release of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, which sold 130,000 units in both digital and retail form. Interestingly, this was the fourth best-selling SKU of the month in terms of bundles but individual sales were overshadowed by bigger names.

Bravely Default, on the other hand, managed to make tenth place, with 200,000 copies sold in retail and digital. The month belonged to Microsoft though with 772,000 software unit sales on the Xbox One and 2.46 million on the Xbox 360 for a collective 48 percent share of the market place.

The top ten saw Call of Duty: Ghosts at first while The Lego Movie Videogame took second. Thief also debuted in third place for February with Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII at seventh. The usual suspects – NBA 2K14, GTA 5, Battlefield 4 and Assassin’s Creed IV – still hold a place.

Software sales in total amounted to $318 million which is down 9 percent year-on-year but significantly improved from January.

Although the PlayStation 4 had an excellent launch, selling 2.1 million units by the beginning of December, it was actually the Xbox One which took the lead in next gen hardware sales for the month according to the latest NPD report for the month. The Xbox One managed to sell 908,000 units while the Xbox 360 topped current gen sales with 643,000 units sold.

The total amount spent on the Xbox in December totaled $1.39 billion, which is half of all combined software, hardware and accessories purchased in the month. According to Microsoft, it currently holds 46 percent of the market share. If that weren’t enough, six of the ten top selling games for December were on the Xbox One.

Sony isn’t worried though. SCEA’s Dan Rice stated to Joystiq that, “PlayStation 4 remains the cumulative leader for next gen console sales in the U.S. since the launch on November 15. We sold every PS4 available at retail in the US and were out of stock in December due to overwhelming consumer demand.” As of January 7th, Sony has sold 4.2 million PlayStation 4 consoles worldwide.

What do you make of these figures? Let us know in the comments below.