Zachary Dalton June 19th, 2019 - 6:25 PM
Last night, the NPD Group released the May 2019 sales report regarding what video game software and hardware did the best in the U.S. during the month. May 2019 appears to have been a down month for video games overall as spending across all forms of gaming fell 11% when compared to last year to $641 million.
On the software side of things, there wasn’t a big shake up to the rankings when compared to last month. This is mostly due to a lack of multiple major game releases, and “total dollar sales of new releases in May 2019 are the lowest for new releases in a May month since May 1998.” Overall, software spending fell 13% to $262 million when compared to last year, and had the lowest software sales for a May since 2013.
Placing at the top of the list for May was Mortal Kombat 11 for the second month in a row. The game “nearly doubled” the second month sales of any other entries in the franchise. Surprisingly, this success has caused Mortal Kombat 11 to usurp Kingdom Hearts III, which has been on top since January, as the U.S.’s best selling game of the year.
Placing second on the list for the second consecutive month was Days Gone. Though not doing well critically, currently sitting at a 71 on Metacritic, the game appears to be somewhat of a commercial success and is the eighth best selling game of the year so far. The biggest surprise of May was Total War: Three Kingdoms. This is the first time a PC exclusive has finished in the top 3 for a month in recent history. Elsewhere on the list, longtime mainstays Grand Theft Auto V and Minecraft returned to the top 5 and top 10 respectively.
You can see the full top 10 best selling games in the U.S. during the month of May below:
- Mortal Kombat 11
- Days Gone
- Total War: Three Kingdoms
- Rage 2*
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
- Red Dead Redemption II
- MLB 19: The Show
- Minecraft**
- NBA 2K19
* Digital sales not included
** PC digital sales not included
On the hardware side of things, the Nintendo Switch continues it dominate run as the best selling console of the month and overall year. While the Nintendo Switch is succeeding, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are declining in sales. This does make sense as we’ve entered the tail end of the generation, and the next generation is just over the horizon, specifically holiday 2020.
