April NPD: Mortal Kombat beats Portal 2
The NPD Group has released its retail-only April 2011 data, showing the Xbox 360 on top of hardware again, and Mortal Kombat at the top of the software pile.
The NPD Group released its retail-only sales data for April 2011 last night, and it shows some positives signs for the industry. Physical software sales grew in both units and dollars for the first time since November.
Mortal Kombat took the top spot with 900,000 units, edging out Portal 2. It's worth noting, of course, that Portal 2 probably saw more than a few purchases through Steam, which isn't tracked by NPD and may never be.
Though NPD hasn't brought back detailed sales numbers, it points out that five games sold more than 250,000 units this April, as opposed to only two last April. Finally, NPD claims that if the Move accessory bundle for SOCOM 4 had been counted in its software sales, the game would have ranked in the top ten. The Full Deployment Bundle, which included the Sharpshooter, Move, and game, was the top new accessory for the month.
The Xbox 360 was again the top-selling hardware in terms of unit sales, followed by the Nintendo DS. Sales of hardware were up over last year, but only by 3%. NPD didn't share the sales spot for the 3DS, so we're left to wonder how interest has waxed or waned after its launch month.
- Top 10 US physical retail games - April 3 to April 30, 2011
1. Mortal Kombat 2011 (PS3, 360)
2. Portal 2 (360, PS3, PC)
3. Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (Wii, NDS, 360, 3DS, PS3, PC)
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, NDS, Wii, PC)
5. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters (360, PS3, Wii)
6. Crysis 2 (360, PS3, PC)
7. Just Dance 2 (Wii)
8. Michael Jackson The Experience (360, Wii, PS3, NDS, PSP)
9. Pokemon White Version (NDS)
10. NBA 2K11 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PS2, PC)
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Shacknews
replySteve Watts posted a new article, April NPD: Mortal Kombat beats Portal 2.
The NPD Group has released its retail-only April 2011 data, showing the Xbox 360 on top of hardware again, and Mortal Kombat at the top of the software pile.-
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MK always sells well though, regardless if the game is good or not.
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They deserve their reward for making such a great game.
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^^^Yes. Polished as fuck, with the best single player content in a fighter ever.
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except NPD doesn't track Steam sales
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Ding ding ding.
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I love Valve's comment on it. Paraphrased: "We don't get into dick waving contests with other publishers. We know how much we make."
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Your paraphrase just made my day.
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The way they actually said it is... different:
“The point is, it’s not super-important for a publisher or developer to know how well everyone is doing," he said. "What’s important to know is exactly how your game is doing – why it’s climbing and why it’s falling. Your daily sales, your daily swing, your rewards for online campaign number three. That’s what we provide.”
http://www.next-gen.biz/news/valve-no-steam-data-for-download-charts-
What? How is it not important how a competitor is doing? Why your game is rising and falling has everything to do with competitors. Is MK selling well based on internal expectations or is it actually selling well next to SF4? If so, why? Let's say MK reviewed better than SF4 and sold to their own expectations. Great, a rousing success. Except if you go look at the sales of SF4 and it massively outsold MK then suddenly your success isn't quite as great, in fact you see a missed opportunity. Understanding the competitor's sales trends and totals may tell you there's a marketing or branding problem. And so for the next MK you say ok we know sales issues weren't a result of technical failing and we just need better messaging. Now, obviously you can argue we as consumers don't need that data, but it seems pretty obvious that developers and publishers do.
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Wow you should go tell the valve guys that, I bet they never actually did the number crunching and figured out what is and isn't important in selling video games. I mean all they do is sell video games. You better go set them straight.
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it doesn't actually matter what your competition is doing if you're still making a fucktonne of money
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Apples and potatoes?
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Not bad on the Full Deployment. I think Sony may have finally figured out the strategy for getting gamers to understand Move and how it will work. Too bad they didn't do something similar for Killzone 3 because I suspect it would have done better.
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You got that right. Project Cafe is the future.
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