So some interesting things from Sept. NPD.
https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/23/september-2018-npd/
“Dollar sales of console, portable and PC games software reached $747 million in September 2018, flat when compared to a year ago,” said Piscatella. “Year-to-date software spending is up 5 percent versus a year ago, to $3.9 billion.”
Spider-Man's massive sales basically took sales away from others. Destiny 2, last year's comparable big seller for Sept. was on 2 platforms.
“Marvel’s Spider-Man, the best-selling game of September, achieved the highest launch month dollar sales for any PlayStation exclusive in history, and is the seventh largest launch ever achieved by any game on any PlayStation platform,” said Piscatella.
Highest launch month ever for PS exclusive, but only 7th highest of any PS game. I wonder which 3rd party titles did better? GTA probably in there? COD?
“Marvel’s Spider-Man achieved launch month sales 37 percent higher than the combined launch month sales of all other Spider-Man games released since The NPD Group began tracking in 1995,” said Piscatella.
It absolutely put to shame all previous Spider-Man games...combined.
Kudos to Playground Games on their achievement with FH4 with the highest launch sales of any Forza game.
Filling out one more chart that didn't get posted.
Best selling games of the last 12 months
- Call of Duty: WWII**
- Super Mario Odyssey*
- Far Cry 5
- Star Wars: Battlefront II 2017**
- NBA 2K18
- Assassin’s Creed: Origins
- God of War 2018
- Marvel’s Spider-Man
- Monster Hunter: World
- NBA 2K19
God of War not only managed to stay on the chart, but it stayed ahead of Spider-Man 2 and moved up to number 7.
Needs repeating just how much of an accomplishment it is for Spider-Man to debut at number 8 on the rolling 12 month chart as a single SKU title.
Also worth noting that MH: W is on the rolling 12 month chart (wasn't on there last month) due to PC sales of the title boosting it's sales. It didn't chart in the top 10 of either XBO or PS4 for Sept.
PS4 back at the top uncontested in both unit sales and revenue.
But not a bad month for XBO either as it grew sales revenue by 30% YoY for Sept. and is up 60% YoY for 2018 so far.
And finally, to highlight the increased movement towards digital sales...
“Total spending on Accessories and Game Cards grew 43 percent in September 2018 when compared to a year ago, to an all-time high of $323 million,” said Piscatella. “Year to date, Accessories and Game Card spending has grown 35 percent when compared to a year ago, to $2.6 billion. This is also an all-time high, significantly exceeding the $1.9 billion generated in the 2017 year to date period.”
Enough that game card sales are now surpassing accessory sales.
People are also rushing with cash in their hands to get game currency cards at retail. And for the first time since NPD started tracking, game card spending has surpassed accessory spending in September and year-to-date.
Or to think of it another way a minimum of 1.3 billion USD was spent on console cash cards this year.
Regards,
SB