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All Articles: Grand Theft Auto V
The 1-2 punch of Tekken 7 and Injustice 2 sit atop the best-selling games list for June 2017
Fighting game fans have proven, once again, that the genre is alive and well. According to the NPD Group’s recounting of the best-selling games in June, Tekken 7 (#1) and Injustice 2 (#2) took the top two spots. Nintendo’s bizarro take on the genre, Arms, also made a strong debut in the #5 spot.
Speaking of the Switch, Nintendo’s newest console continued to push the game industry to new heights in June, as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (#6) and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (#7) stayed in the top ten.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, NPD Analyst Mat Piscatella said: “The Nintendo Switch has been the catalyst for year-to-date growth. Year-to-date, hardware spending has grown 19% versus 2016 to $1.4 billion.”
However, older titles also performed well in June, including Grand Theft Auto V (#3), Overwatch (#9), and Minecraft (#17). 2015’s Call of Duty: Black Ops III (#12) even managed to outsell 2016’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (#15).
A complete look at the Top 20 for June 2017 can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Arms, Battlefield 1, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Crash Bandicoot: Warped, FIFA 17, Forza Horizon 3, Grand Theft Auto V, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Injustice 2, Mario Kart 8, Minecraft, MLB The Show 17, NBA 2K17, NPD, Overwatch, Tekken 7, The Elder Scrolls Online, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege
Justice was served as Injustice 2 was the best-selling game of May 2017
NetherRealm Studios has done it again… The NPD Group (via GamesIndustry.biz) has revealed that Injustice 2 was the best-selling game in May.
In the midst of Wonder Woman-mania, the one-on-one fighter beat out the Switch’s heaviest hitters (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at #2 and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at #4), as well as Prey (#5) and Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadow of Valentia (#7).
Grand Theft Auto V continues to sell well, landing at #3 in the monthly tally. And Blizzard’s Overwatch celebrated its first anniversary by squeaking into the top ten at #10.
A list of May 2017’s top ten best-selling titles can be found after the break. (more…)
Take-Two has shipped more than 80 million copies of Grand Theft Auto V and GTA Online is more popular than ever
Grand Theft Auto V continues to steamroll the competition. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick lead off yesterday’s quarterly financial report by announcing that the publisher has shipped more than 80 million copies of the game since its release in 2013.
Even though that’s an absolutely astonishing number, Grand Theft Auto V still trails Wii Sports and Minecraft on the list of best-selling games of all time.
Grand Theft Auto V’s continued sales success is mostly due to the way its sprawling single-player story draws in new players every month. But the game’s multiplayer component, “Grand Theft Auto Online,” has actually never been more popular. According to Zelnick, Take-Two made more money through microtransactions in “Grand Theft Auto Online” during their last fiscal year (April 1, 2016 – March 31, 2017) than ever before. Not bad for a game that’s almost four years old.
New content for “Grand Theft Auto Online” is released on a nearly weekly basis, and Zelnick confirmed that Rockstar Games is currently hard at work on even more updates to the game mode:
On “GTA Online,” we have said that plenty more content is coming. More announcements will be made by Rockstar Games. The title is absolutely being supported by the label.
With Red Dead Redemption 2‘s recent delay, this strategy will surely sell more copies of Grand Theft Auto V (and keep “Grand Theft Auto Online” players happy) for a long time.
The Switch continues to soar as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was the best-selling game in April 2017
Nintendo continues to dominate the retail charts with another strong showing in April for their Switch console. According to The NPD Group, Nintendo added another 280,000 Switch consoles to its tally last month, and the newly-launched Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold more than 459,000 copies (in just two days) to take the top spot on the list of best-selling games. The company’s success also seems to be great for the industry as a whole, as the industry generated $636 million in sales in April 2017, a 10% increase over the year before.
The other big news in April is that Persona 5 pushed the franchise and gave the RPG the #2 spot on the best-seller list, just below Mario Kart 8.
“Persona 5 experienced the strongest debut month for any title in Persona franchise history, with packaged dollar sales five times that of the previous best-selling debut, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4,” NPD Analyst Mat Piscatella told GamesIndustry.biz.
Additional new releases were thin on the ground in last month’s Top 20, but Lego Undercover‘s re-release on the PC and current-generation consoles helped it secure a spot (#13). And as expected, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild continued to sell well, landing in the #3 position for the month. But the big retail winners in April all came from the backlist, including Grand Theft Auto V (#6), Overwatch (#9), Call of Duty: Black Ops II (#10), and Minecraft (#20).
The NPD Group’s complete list of best-selling games for April 2017 can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Wii U, Xbox 360
Tagged Battlefield 1, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, For Honor, Grand Theft Auto V, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMix, Lego City Undercover, Lego Worlds, Mario Kart 8, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Minecraft, MLB The Show 17, NBA 2K17, Nier: Automata, NPD, Overwatch, Persona 5, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege
Nintendo smashed sales records in March 2017… but Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands was the top-selling game
Nintendo told us all about their record-setting sales month last week, but the NPD Group made it official today when they revealed their retail report on the video game industry for March 2017.
NPD analyst Sam Naji told GamesIndustry.biz: “March 2017 will go down in history books as the month Nintendo broke records.The Nintendo Switch had the biggest hardware launch for a Nintendo platform and the second biggest launch for any video game platform since 1995, the time NPD began tracking this category.”
However, even though The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild managed to sell more than 900,000 copies, it wasn’t able to secure the #1 spot. Instead, Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands was the best-selling game last month, likely due to Nintendo’s unwillingness to share their digital sales figures with the NPD Group. Other strong sellers on the Switch included 1-2 Switch (#13) and Super Bomberman R (#17).
Big debuts weren’t limited to Nintendo’s Switch, and it was a banner month for several new releases last month, as Mass Effect: Andromeda (#3), Horizon: Zero Dawn (#4), and Nier: Automata (#9) also smashed expectations. Combined with impressive Switch hardware sales, these games helped the industry record more than $1.36 billion in total sales for the month, a 24% year-on-year increase over March 2016.
The complete list of best-selling games from March 2017 can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged 1-2-Switch, Battlefield 1, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, FIFA 17, For Honor, Grand Theft Auto V, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMix, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMix, Lego Worlds, Madden NFL 17, Mass Effect: Andromeda, MLB The Show 17, NBA 2K17, Nier: Automata, NPD, Overwatch, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Super Bomberman R, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege
4/1: AMC and the creators of Breaking Bad are NOT working on a Grand Theft Auto TV show
It’s April 1st, which means you shouldn’t believe everything anything you read on the Internet today. For example… AMC did not hire the creators of Breaking Bad to develop a television adaptation of Grand Theft Auto V.
The trailer making the rounds today was actually created by IGN, but the narration from Steven Ogg (he played Trevor Phillips in GTA5) gives it that extra jolt of authenticity and might help fool a few people.
While this trailer is just an April Fool’s Day prank, Take-Two Interactive might actually be working on a film adaptation of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Earlier this year, CEO Strauss Zelnick told MCV that his company has “licensed a couple of titles for motion picture production.” The executive didn’t name Grand Theft Auto as one of the titles, but prolific film director Roger Corman has repeatedly claimed that a settlement he signed with Take-Two more than a decade ago prevents the publisher from adapting Grand Theft Auto for the silver screen.
Corman produced Ron Howard’s directorial debut, 1977’s Grand Theft Auto, and he’s been trying to remake it for years. But instead of a gangland drama like The Godfather or Scarface, Howard’s film is a road comedy more closely related to something like The Blues Brothers. But if Corman is holding up the creation of a Grand Theft Auto film, it’s never been publicly acknowledged by Take-Two.
For Honor rises to the occasion as the best-selling game of February 2017
Ubisoft’s For Honor conquered all comers during its first month of availability, as The NPD Group declared it the best-selling game during February 2017. The multiplayer brawler faced some tough competition, but it emerged victorious on the retail battlefield, besting both Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (#2) and Grand Theft Auto V (#3).
The only other new release to crack last month’s top ten was Nioh, an action RPG developed by Team Ninja and published by Koei Tecmo.
But the overall retail health of the industry was on a downward swing in February. According to GamesIndustry.biz, hardware and software sales were down: “Total hardware sales amounted to $204 million, down 30% from last year. Console and portable software dropped 14% to $344.2 million, PC software fell 26% to just $25 million, while accessories fell 21% to $150.8 million. All told, industry sales took a 21% hit, declining from $918.7 million to $724 million.”
However, it seems likely that the successful launch of the Nintendo Switch (and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild) will change that trajectory in March.
The complete list of best-selling games from February 2017 can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Battlefield 1, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, For Honor, Grand Theft Auto V, Madden NFL 17, NBA 2K17, Nioh, NPD, Overwatch, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard shambles to the top of January 2017’s best-selling games report
It looks like there’s still some life left in the Resident Evil franchise. The latest game in the series, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, topped the NPD Group’s report on the best-selling games in January 2017. The only other new release to crack the top ten was Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue, which camein at #6.
“With only five days in the market, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was the best-selling game in January. The last time Capcom had the best-selling game of the month (in dollar sales) was in March 2009 with Resident Evil 5,” NPD Analyst Sam Naji told GamesIndustry.biz.
Overall spending on game titles was up 14% last month over January 2016, thanks mostly to continued demand for 2016’s biggest releases including Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (#2), Battlfield 1 (#4), and NBA 2K17 (#5). And Grand Theft Auto V (#3) continues to burn up the charts more than four years after it was first released.
The complete list of best-selling games from January 2017 can be found after the break. (more…)