According to analyst Mat Piscatella State of Decay won May NPD , State of Decay 2 are doubling their sales compared to the fist State of Decay.

While God of War drop to second on NPD (which is still amazing) and Detroid become Human are on third rank  . But overall Total video games sales are up 13 % in May and 15 % YTD .

https://youtu.be/3rsOnFVCaS8

https://www.dualshockers.com/ps4-state-of-decay-win-npd/

So this is a good sales despite a mixed reviewed and decent metascore of the games , and clearly the games is still supper bugy and a lot need to be fixed, I hope they add more content as well.

So people who underestimate sales and marketing people please don't relate games quality to sales performance, a games maybe bad in terms quality,  but it can sell a lot if they can marketed well. 

State of decay 2 is a fun game and well deserve.

I ended up getting it because of its lower price, I haven't really tried it but now that I have an X and have a 2 week Gold trial I guess I should.

So about State of Decay 2.....the single player experience is there, and is loaded with content, and it's bigger and better than state of decay 1. Most of the criticism is directed towards the multiplayer, which is borderline unplayable, unfortunately.

Anyways, NPD rankings are based off revenue, not units. And State of Decay is $30, so it would need to sell more than 2:1 against a $60 game to be ahead of it in the ranking.
Despite the huge disadvantage, SoD2 still got 1st. Impressive.

are they counting game pass?

SoD is very popular on PC, where the first one grew big so makes sense....and didnt Ms give it away as a free game with the purchase of an Xbox for about a week? Dont remember exactly.

Also Detroit is the best selling QD game in its first NPD month and it only had a couple of days, and God of War is already the second highest selling game this year. Who would have thought exclusives mattered....4 of the top 5

SoD 2 being #1 is excellent. Easy to see why Microsoft picked up that studio. Game Pass seems to be helping sales somehow. I'm not going to try and figure out why but it's hard to argue with the results. Good showing for God of War, Detroit, DKTF, and Hyrule Warriors as well. Gotta be concerning for Labo to be down with Mario+Rabbids in its second month. Hopefully retailers weren't overshipped in the US like they were in Japan.

No, Game Pass is not counted. Revenue includes physical and digital XB1 sales and digital PC sales. Aquamarine said that the amount of SOD2 PC sales were pretty substantial.

I guess this is why Microsoft picked up Undead Labs so soon after the launch, the game is secretly a hit internally. The third title could go AAA now that Microsoft has complete control, and a higher profit margin per sale now. GREAT NEWS. Although the zombies genre seems to be dying, State of Decay 2 seems to have hit that special market and a dedicated fan base. Time to see how Dying Light 2 fares in todays market with its unique parkour and choices matter system coming.

SoD2 is an amazing game, the single player is there, the content is there and it's fucking great. Just the multiplayer isn't entirely there (now that I finally got to try it with my brother on gamepass, I know for sure multiplayer isn't completely perfect yet). I love the fact that the zombies are the main enemies again and not just the human AI characters, that is something other zombie games fail at.

thats pretty impressive then