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October 2015 NPD: Strong Sales All Around As Halo Leads The Pack
The October NPD numbers are out, and while it doesn’t seem that too much has changed since last year, gamers (and game makers) have plenty of reasons to be happy. Here's the full breakdown.
NPD Group reports that October sales were up slightly since last year. Overall video game market's sales experienced a modest 2 percent jump since last year around this time. Much of this was driven by accessory sales, which grew by 18 percent, or just under $30 million. This includes subscription card sales, which were up 38 percent from October 2014, making this the best October for video game subscription cards on record.
Hardware sales were pretty neck-and-neck with the numbers from last year. Console sales grew by 3 percent, while portables sales declined 27 percent.
Gamers are still buying plenty of games, but the sale of new physical copies of games actually decreased by 3 percent when compared to last year’s numbers. However, it’s worth noting that the NDP doesn’t actually track downloadable numbers, so it’s plausible that total game sales are fairly even – or even exceed – last year’s data.
Here is the full top ten list:
- Halo 5: Guardians (Xbox One)
- NBA 2K16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)
- Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (PS4, Xbox One)
- Madden NFL 16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)
- WWE 2K16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)
- FIFA 16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)
- Destiny: The Taken King (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)
- Yoshi's Wooly World (WiiU)
- Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection (PS4)
- Rock Band 4 (Xbox One, PS4)
As always, the platforms are listed in the order of sales, and do not include hardware bundles.
Our Take
It's great to see that game sales are holding strong. It’s not too surprising to see Halo 5: Guardians and the usual sports titles on here, but I’m happy to see that Rock Band 4 is also doing well. And it’s nice to see that not too many people were turned away from Assassin's Creed: Syndicate after the debacle that was Unity.
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