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October Game Sales Favor Heavy Hitters In Middle-Earth, Egypt, And The Mushroom Kingdom
This month's NPD sales are out and, as expected, a lot of the month's biggest games resonated with the market.
The Switch remains the best selling hardware in America, but it still has not overtaken the PlayStation 4's early lead. Unless the Switch does particularly well for Christmas and the PlayStation 4 craters, it is likely Sony will keep that crown for 2017 as a whole. Nintendo can take solace that the SNES Classic was the second best selling hardware of the month.
In terms of software, Middle-earth: Shadow of War sold the most at retail this month, with Assassin's Creed Origins trailing slightly behind, and Super Mario Odyssey slightly behind that. Both Shadow of War and Assassin's Creed Origins are on multiple platforms, making Mario the best selling game on a single platform in October.
Here is the top fifteen of October.
| Middle-earth: Shadow of War | 1 |
| Assassin's Creed: Origins | 2 |
| Super Mario Odyssey | 3 |
| South Park: The Fractured But Whole | 4 |
| NBA 2K18 | 5 |
| FIFA 18 | 6 |
| WWE 2K18 | 7 |
| Madden NFL 18 | 8 |
| Destiny 2 | 9 |
| Forza Motorsport 7 | 10 |
| Gran Turismo Sport | 11 |
| Grand Theft Auto V | 12 |
| The Evil Within 2 | 13 |
| Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus | 14 |
| The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild | 15 |
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and The Evil Within 2, two single-player sequels from Bethesda, failed to crack the top ten. Grand Theft Auto V, now officially the best selling game of all time in the U.S., is still hanging on to the top fifteen. Sony's Gran Turismo Sport debuted at a fairly disappointing placement outside the top ten, but Gran Turismo games usually sell well over a long period of time, so it might be too early to count it out.
Fire Emblem Warriors also did not sell terribly well, missing the top fifteen entirely, which indicates that its odd release date a week before Super Mario Odyssey may have been ill-advised.
Our Take
It is a shame that two single-player Bethesda titles sort of fizzled in October, but a lot of decisions made around the release of those games didn't help. Ubisoft has to be happy occupying two slots in the top five, justifying their year off with Assassin's Creed.
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