Hey now, you're a Rockstar.
The NPD Group has published an updated list of this console generation's best-selling games in the United States. With figures hovering around 110 million units shipped worldwide, it comes as no surprise that Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V leads the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One lists. But the rest of the results are both curious and predictable.
Mat Piscatella, a video games industry analyst for The NPD Group, posted a series of tweets revealing the lists. There are a couple of things to note. First, the list is "life to date through May 2019." Second, while the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One lists include digital and physical game sales, nine out of the 10 Nintendo Switch games--with the exception being Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle--don't include digital sales.
On the predictable side, both Marvel's Spider-Man and God of War from 2018 take up the sixth and eighth spots on PlayStation 4, with Marvel's Spider-Man claiming the trophy of Sony's best-selling console exclusive this generation. Rockstar's magnum opus, Red Dead Redemption 2, finds itself in the second spot on PlayStation 4 and the fifth spot on the Xbox One. Though every game on the Nintendo Switch list is a console exclusive, Mario Kart 8 takes first place over both Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (second) and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (third).
What's curious to me is, while Call of Duty is a successful franchise, five different entries--2017'WWII (second), 2015's Black Ops 3 (third), 2018's Black Ops 4 (fourth), 2016's Infinite Warfare (sixth), and 2014's Advanced Warfare (ninth)--take up five spots on the Xbox One list. 2017's NBA 2K18 sits in the ninth spot on PlayStation 4. DICE's Star Wars Battlefront from 2015 occupies the eighth spot on Xbox One, and strangely, not a single console exclusive even lands on the list. Destiny 2 does come in at a solid tenth place on Xbox One though.
Check out the full lists below.
Nintendo Switch
- Mario Kart 8
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- Super Mario Odyssey
- Super Mario Party
- Splatoon 2
- Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu!
- Pokemon: Let's Go, Eevee!
- Mario & Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
PlayStation 4
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Call of Duty: WWII
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
- Marvel's Spider-Man
- Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
- God of War (2018)
- NBA 2K18
- Battlefield 1
Xbox One
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Call of Duty: WWII
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
- Red Dead Redemption II
- Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
- Battlefield 1
- Star Wars Battlefront (2015)
- Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
- Destiny 2