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Madden, Saints Row Top August 2013 NPD Charts, 3DS Sales Strong
EA Sports' Madden NFL 25 tops the August charts with only a week of sales, while Nintendo's 3DS continues to experience brisk sales.
This month's NPD finally held some good news for software sales. New physical software sales experience its first positive growth month since November 2011. Sales were up 23 percent compared to August 2012, thanks to the launch of high profile games like Madden, Disney Infinity, Saints Row IV, and Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
Things were slower on the hardware side, down 40 percent over the same period last year. However, given that two new consoles are launching this fall, that's to be expected. 3DS was the best-selling hardware on the market overall, and Xbox 360 was once again the best-selling home console.
One notable entry was the retail (boxed disc) version of Minecraft, which came it at number five on the top 10. Who would have thought that the "paid beta" PC game would one day be a retail console release. Another interesting fact, per NPD: "If we were to rank the top ten games on a SKU basis, PS3 Tales of Xillia would have made the top 10 for August. On a title basis, including all SKUs, Tales of Xillia ranked just outside of the top 10 at number 11."
Nintendo's Mario & Luigi: Dream Team did well, as did Pikmin 3, making it one of the rare Wii U games to crack the top 10. Given the system's small install base, that's a good performance.
August 2013 Top 10 Selling Games
1 Madden NFL 25 (360, PS3) - EA Sports
2 Saints Row IV (360, PS3, PC) - Deep Silver
3 Disney Infinity (360, Wii, PS3, Wii U, 3DS) - Disney Interactive
4 Splinter Cell: Blacklist (360, PS3, Wii U, PC) - Ubisoft
5 Minecraft (360) - Microsoft
6 Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (3DS) - Nintendo
7 NCAA Football 14 (360, PS3) - EA Sports
8 Payday 2 (360, PS3) - 505 Games
9 Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn (PS3, PC) - Square Enix
10 Pikmin 3 (Wii U) - Nintendo
Our Take:
It's nice to see some good news for software sales; it's been too long since we saw a year-on-year gain. Thankfully, August had a strong roster of titles, and things will likely improve further in September with the launch of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V, the year's biggest event game. Also, after a slow start (and much doubting of Nintendo) the 3DS has, like every other Nintendo handheld, turned into a juggernaut.
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