jason1637 on 19 January 2017
GAMES
2016 NPD: Call of Duty No. 1, Battlefield No. 2 on 2016’s list of best-selling games
MIKE MINOTTI@TOLKOTO JANUARY 19, 2017 4:55 PM
Ship assault in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.
Above: Ship assault in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.
Image Credit: Activision
2016 is over. Here are the games that made the most of the year.
The NPD Group has released its list of the 10 best-selling games of 2016. And, yes, shooters and sports titles continue to dominate the industry.
The list includes physical sales and some digital (for PC games it includes Steam, but not other digial stores like Origin).
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
Battlefield 1
Tom Clancy’s The Division
NBA 2K17
Madden NFL 17
Grand Theft Auto V
Overwatch
Call of Duty: Black Ops III
FIFA 17
Final Fantasy XV
Once again, Call of Duty is at the top of the list. The shooter franchise has dominated the industry since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare came out in 2007. In fact, Call of Duty shows up twice on this list, with last year’s Black Ops III ranking at No. 8.
Electronic Art’s big shooter of the year, Battlefield 1, wasn’t far behind at No. 2. This year’s entry took a risk by using a World War I setting, which is a rarity for gaming. But it seems like fans were ready for a change in time and scenery.
Tom Clancy’s The Division came out early in the year in March and ranked at No. 3. Ubisoft did a good job promoting the open-world, online game with impressive demos at shows like the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
Sports games continue to do well, with NBA 2K, Madden, and FIFA all appearing. This year, however, NBA 2K17 managed to perform better than Madden NFL 17. Last year, Madden was at the No. 2 spot, only behind Call of Duty: Black Ops III.
Grand Theft Auto V is still charting. Rockstar’s open-world game came out back in 2013, but the developer has supported its online component with a steady stream of content.
Overwatch shows up at No. 7, although it probably performed better than this list indicates. The NPD does not track sales through Battle.net, Blizzard’s PC games platform. It’s likely that a lot of PC players purchased the game digitally from Battle.net.
Lastly, Final Fantasy XV makes an impressive showing at No. 10 despite only coming out late in November. It was the second-best selling game in December, after only Call of Duty.
GAMES
U.S. gaming industry earned $30.4 billion in 2016, up from 2015
MIKE MINOTTI@TOLKOTOJANUARY 19, 2017 05:15 PM
Tracer from Overwatch.
Above: Tracer from Overwatch.
Image Credit: Blizzard Entertainment
2016 was a year of growth for the U.S. gaming industry.
According to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the U.S. video games industry earned $30.4 billion in 2016. That is up from $30.2 billion in 2015.
“Growth in entertainment software consumer spend was seen across the mobile, PC, virtual reality, subscription, portable, and digital console segments,” said Mat Piscatella, industry analyst at The NPD Group, in a press release sent to GamesBeat. “Consumers have more options to purchase and enjoy entertainment software than ever before, while developers have more and easier ways of delivering that content. No matter the delivery platform, entertainment software has never been more engaging, diverse or accessible.”
2016 saw the introduction of virtual reality to a wider audience with the releases of the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR headsets. It also introduced the idea of upgraded console hardware with the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One S. Meanwhile, the Pokémon franchise had a historic year, with Pokémon Go becoming a momentous hit on mobile and Pokémon Sun and Moon beating franchise records on the 3DS.
Blockbuster games continue to sell well, with familiar franchises having big hits with titles like Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Battlefield I, NBA 2K17, and Madden NFL 2017. New franchises, like Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s The Division and Blizzard’s Overwatch, also managed to do well and crack the year’s list of best-selling games.
Video game software revenue, which includes physical games, mobile games, downloadable content, subscriptions, and other revenue streams, was also up. It hit $24.5 billion in 2016, higher than 2015’s $23.2 billion.
GAMES
December 2016 NPD: Final Fantasy XV shows it has a new recipe for franchise’s sales
MIKE MINOTTI@TOLKOTOJANUARY 19, 2017 04:20 PM
Caught another fan.
Above: Caught another fan.
Image Credit: Square Enix
It was a good month for Final Fantasy and Pokémon, but video game sales continue to see overall declines.
The video game industry generated $2.8 billion in revenues in the United States in December, according to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group. That is down 15 percent from the same period last year, despite new versions of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One S, appearing on the market. All four aspects of the industry that The NPD Group covers — hardware, console software, PC software, and accessories — were down.
December 2016 results
NPD’s data tracks game sales at physical retailers and some online stores in the U.S. These sales figures include data from the Xbox Game Store, the PlayStation Game Store, and Steam, but only certain publishers share their results with the NPD (you won’t find Blizzard Entertainment’s Battle.net store, for starters). This makes these numbers a snapshot of a larger industry that is far more dynamic.
Hardware December 2016: $994.9M million (down 20 percent) December 2015: $1.24 billion
Console software December 2016: $1.19 billion (down 12 percent) December 2015: $1.35 billion
PC software December 2016: $45.8 million (down 13 percent) December 2015: $52.9 million
Accessories December 2016: $547.6 million (down 15 percent) December 2015: $640.7 million
Software
Here is the top 10 for the month of December. It includes physical sales as well as some digital sales.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
Final Fantasy XV
Battlefield 1
Madden NFL 17
NBA 2K17
Watch Dogs 2
Grand Theft Auto V
Pokémon Sun*
FIFA 17
Pokémon Moon*
*No digital sales counted for this game.
“Final Fantasy XV was the second best-selling title for December 2016, and was the top-selling title on the PS4,” NPD analyst Sam Naji explained in a statement. “Final Fantasy XV experienced the best console launch month in the history of the franchise (since tracking began in 1995) selling 19 percent more new physical units than Final Fantasy XIII in its launch month and 54 percent more in total dollar revenue including digital full game sales.”
NPD noted that Pokémon Sun and Moon combined sales are the best for the franchise since 2007’s Diamond and Pearl, while a Call of Duty game was in the top spot for ninth year in a row.
Otherwise, you see a lot of usual holiday suspects: Call of Duty, Battlefield, Madden, NBA 2K, Grand Theft Auto V, and FIFA. These franchises have become reliable money-makers for their publishers. Ubisoft’s open-world hacking game, Watch Dogs 2, also appeared on the list in the No. 6 spot following its release on November 15.
Hardware
The PlayStation 4 was the top-selling console of the month, with the PlayStation 4 Slim System 500GB Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End Bundle performing the best. However, the Xbox One saw a 10 percent increase in the number of consoles sold over the same period last year.
Sales of Nintendo’s nostalgic NES Classic Edition were up 14 percent compared to November, its debut month that saw it move 196,000 consoles. Meanwhile, Pokémon helped the aging 3DS portable grow its sales by 2 percent from December 2015.
