In what was a foregone conclusion, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the top-selling game in the United States during the month of November. The NPD Group today released its report for the month of November, which tracks new, physical sales at retail. MW3's top spot was never in doubt, particularly after the game sold 6.5 million units in the United States and United Kingdom on launch day. First month sales of the game were up "about 7 percent" as compared with Black Ops.
Coming in at number two was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Despite having its fair share of bugs, including some serious issues with lag on PS3 in particular, the NPD Group reports Skyrim is about 500,000 units away from matching lifetime sales of its predecessor, Oblivion. That's an incredible feat for the game to have accomplished in just over two weeks' time. (The reporting period for for November covers October 30 through November 26; Skyrim was released on November 11.)
Just behind that was Battlefield 3, the best-selling game in October and now the top-seller in the franchise's history. Assassin's Creed: Revelations came in a bit lower than the franchise might be used to at number four, one spot ahead of Just Dance 3. This year's Madden continued to be a strong seller (whereas NBA 2K12, October's number three title, disappeared), the debuting Uncharted 3 came in at number seven (Game Informer was told it sold 700,000 units), and Saints Row: The Third topped The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (which sold over 600,000 units in its first week and had the biggest day-one in franchise history). Batman: Arkham City rounded out the list and sold more than 625,000 units, based on figures Nintendo shared.
If the NPDs didn't combine the different platforms for each game, both Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary and Super Mario 3D Land would have made the top ten. Mario sold in excess of 625,000 units and, as previously reported, it is the fastest-selling portable Mario game in U.S. history.
When it comes to hardware, Xbox 360 was the best-selling system -- the fourth month in a row that's been the case. That's unsurprising as it did experience its best sales week ever during the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday, during which it sold over one million units. It ended up selling an incredible 1.7 million units over the course of the full month, a 23 percent increase over last November. NPD analyst Anita Frazier noted, "The gap between 360 sales and sales of the next best selling platform was the largest we've seen since December 2008 when the Nintendo DS was the top selling system."
Over 860,000 Wii systems, 795,000 3DS systems, and 350,000 DS systems were sold during the month. This was the 3DS' biggest month yet; the system has already surpassed first-year sales of the original DS. This Black Friday was the Wii's biggest ever, no doubt thanks to its lower-than-ever price tag.
Sony declined to share figures in its NPD statement. SCEA's senior director of corporate communications, Patrick Seybold, said that PS3 had its best Black Friday ever and that hardware sales were up 70 percent as compared with November 2010.
Looking at total sales, U.S. games sales (including software, hardware, and accessories) were up 0.4 percent to $3 billion as compared with last November's $2.99 billion. Hardware was down 9 percent, due to price drops, from $1.08 billion to $982.4 million. Software was up 15 percent, from $1.4 billion to $1.67 billion.
"This November marks the best November on record for sales of new physical content," Frazier said. "November 2008 was previously the best November on record."
Modern Warfare 3 played a big role in that, but it seems to have been a big month all around. The software top ten list follows below:
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (360, PS3, Wii, PC)**
- Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (360, PS3, PC)**
- Battlefield 3 (360, PS3, PC)**
- Assassin's Creed: Revelations (360, PS3, PC)
- Just Dance 3 (Wii, 360)
- Madden NFL 12 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PS2)**
- Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (PS3)**
- Saints Row: The Third (360, PS3, PC)**
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii) **
- Batman: Arkham City (360, PS3, PC)**
**(includes CE, GOTY editions, bundles, etc. but not those bundled with hardware)
Story updated with details from Sony and Microsoft NPD statements.
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