June NPD Number Crunch: Batman Arkham Knight already second best-selling

Arkham Knight is followed by The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited and Lego Jurassic World. Sales of these upgraded consoles have been strong, but software sales have fluctuated and, on the whole, have tended to fall from year-ago comparisons.

Batman: Arkham Knight was the biggest thing to happen in June. “Eighth-generation consoles [like PS4 and Xbox One] are leading the way with 15 percent growth over June 2014, offsetting declines in seventh-generation and portable hardware sales”.

NPD Group analyst Liam Callahan said Arkham Knight’s first month sales “slightly exceeded” that of Arkham City in October 2011.

Callahan noted that these types of hardware bundles that include brand new games, and not simply older and less popular titles, helped boost the overall share of console bundles to 82 percent of sales in June 2015, u[ from 35 percent a year ago.

Hanging on in the middle of the pack was Splatoon, which planted its tentacles firmly at place number 5, the same spot it held in last month’s NPD.

Finally, before we get into the grit of the NPD report, we always like to point out that these figures are only a snapshot of a wider more dynamic industry.

Game console sales in particular were up 8 percent in June to $313.1 million from this time a year ago.

In fact, if it wasn’t for LEGO Jurassic World, which came in at third, Splatoon would have been the only Wii U game on the list, period. The bottom five saw some familiar faces with Minecraft, GTA V, Mortal Kombat X, National Basteball Association 2K15, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare completing the top ten. “Interactive is the top corporate publisher so far in 2015, with dollar sales growing 217 percent versus the first half of 2014”, said Callahan. It has published Dying Light, The Witcher 3, Mortal Kombat X, and Batman: Arkham Knight so far this year.

Microsoft was undeterred by Sony’s performance, saying in a statement that “Xbox One sales in the USA were up 51 percent over June 2014 and active global Xbox Live users (Xbox One and Xbox 360) grew 22 percent”. Sales of console and PC games hit a combined $314 million, up 30 percent. Nintendo also saw growth year over year, lumping the Wii U and 3DS together to see a 20 percent increase over June ’14. Much of this growth can be attributed to Nintendo 3DS and the new momentum created by the launch of New Nintendo 3DS XL on February 13.

The latest Rocksteady outing helped drive a 19% year-on-year surge in monthly software sales, and after just 12 days on sale during the tracked period became the second highest-selling release of 2015 behind Mortal Kombat X.