According to Gamespot, the NPD Group has released its monthly video games report for sales in the US covering both December and the entire year of 2015. Topping out the list for both the month of December and 2015 as a whole was Call of Duty: Black Ops III.
“Call of Duty: Black Ops III was the top selling title of 2015 globally by a wide-margin in both units and dollars sold-thru,” Activision senior vice president Rob Kostich said. “This also marks the seventh year in a row that Call of Duty has been the No. 1 selling franchise in North America, according to NPD. In fact, Call of Duty has surpassed 250 million units sold life-to-date worldwide. This achievement is thanks to the amazing experiences created by all of our development teams, and would not be possible without the incredible passion from the Call of Duty community. We congratulate Treyarch on creating an incredibly engaging and an enormously fun game with Black Ops III and look forward to what’s to come in 2016.”
Both Call of Duty: Black Ops III and Star Wars: Battlefront sold better on the Xbox One than the PS4, but the fact that these games were included in the PS4 bundles might be a reason for that stat. Games sold in bundles are not counted in the NPD report. Rainbow Six Siege also sold better on the Xbox One compared to the PS4. The Xbox One version of Siege came with two previous Rainbow Six titles through Microsoft’s Backwards Compatibility Service. Those titles were Rainbow Six Vegas and Vegas 2. Also, all of the Minecraft games sold better on Xbox One than PS4.
December 2015 was also the “best month yet for Xbox Live global engagement and Xbox One sales in the U.S.” the company said in a statement to GameSpot. “The total number of hours spent gaming on Xbox One worldwide nearly doubled compared to December 2014 and Xbox One exclusive game sales in the U.S. between July and December 2015 were up 61 percent compared to the same period in 2014.”
“Revenue from Xbox Store’s Countdown, the biggest Xbox Store sale ever, broke records with 69 percent growth year-over-year when compared to results from last year’s sale,” Microsoft said. “Xbox One is the best place for gamers and the only console that has all top 10 best-selling titles of this generation that launched in 2015. With an incredible catalog of first-party and third-party games on Xbox One and available through Xbox One Backward Compatibility, 2015 was a tremendous year for gamers, and we’re looking forward to making 2016 an even better one.”
Below are the top ten physical software sales for both December and the entire 2015. Note that the order of the consoles listed next to the games indicates which platform the game sold the most on.
Best-Selling Physical Games in US for December 2015:
- Call of Duty: Black Ops III (Xbox One, PS4, 360, PS3, PC)
- Star Wars Battlefront (Xbox One, PS4, PC)
- Fallout 4 (PS4, Xbox One, PC)
- Madden NFL 16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)
- NBA 2K16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)
- Grand Theft Auto V (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3, PC)
- Rainbow Six Siege (Xbox One, PS4, PC)
- Minecraft (360, Xbox One, PS4, PS3)
- Minecraft: Story Mode (360, Xbox One, PS4, PS3)
- FIFA 16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)
Best-Selling Physical Games in US for All of 2015:
- Call of Duty: Black Ops III (Xbox One, PS4, 360, PS3, PC)
- Madden NFL 16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)
- Fallout 4 (PS4, Xbox One, PC)
- Star Wars: Battlefront (Xbox One, PS4, PC)
- Grand Theft Auto V (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3, PC)
- NBA 2K16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)
- Minecraft (360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4)
- Mortal Kombat X (PS4, Xbox One)
- FIFA 16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)
- Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Xbox One, PS4, 360, PS3, PC)
Physical software sales in December dropped by 4% compared the year prior from $1.28 Billion in 2014 to $1.23 Billion in 2015. NPD’s Liam Callahan said that the biggest drop was found in portable game sales at 40% from the year prior. Consoles only dropped 1 % from 2014 to 2015.
For the year, software sales dropped 3% from $5.47 Billion to $5.29 Billion. With such a steep drop in portable game sales at 34% and a 53% drop in PS3/Xbox 360 sales, the PS4/Xbox One’s jump in sales of 52% wasn’t enough to rally the totals to an increase over the previous year.
“December 2015 was the best month on record for PS4 and Xbox One, and the second-best for the Wii U in terms of new physical software unit sales,” Callahan said. “This also meant that it was the best month of total eighth generation new physical software sales. 2015 was also the best year so far for total eighth generation new physical software sales.”
In hardware sales, Sony won out by selling the most units in December and all of 2015. Call of Duty: Black Ops III also hit a milestone by pushing the Call of Duty franchise over 250 million units sold.