June 2013 NPD: The Last of Us leads a strong month

The Last of Us leads a crowded June 2013 NPD field, edging out Animal Crossing: New Leaf and a surprise challenger in the retail edition of Minecraft.

Ozzie Mejia

July 19, 2013 7:30 AM

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The Last of Us took the top position on the NPD charts. Animal Crossing: New Leaf finished with a solid second place, while the retail version of Minecraft on Xbox 360 surprisingly wound up with the third spot. NPD's Liam Callahan sees Minecraft's strong opening as an indicator that "digital products can reach a new market when launching a physical disc. While many have downloaded the game, these sales indicate that there are plenty of consumers willing to buy a physical disc who are either not connected to the internet, don’t have a credit card to purchase digital games online, or simply prefer the physical disk over digital copies."

Naughty Dog's survival horror game proves to be a crowning achievement for Sony, as The Last of Us had the second highest first-month sales for a PS3 first-party title since God of War 3 in March 2010. It's also achieved the third highest launch in the month of June since NPD first started tracking sales in 1995. June proved a stronger month overall than last year, with 90 percent more unit sales sold than in June 2012.

On the other end of the spectrum is Deadpool, which launched to a disappointing 8th place finish. Hardly surprising given the troubles that High Moon has faced, along with some lukewarm reviews.

Following up on last month's big story, the Nintendo 3DS maintained the top spot for overall hardware sales, while the Xbox 360 remained the highest selling console. Another console contender entered the market, but the Android-powered Ouya didn't make many waves in the retail space. Callahan attributes light Ouya sales to the lack of a marquee title, low consumer awareness, and low inventory volume.

Here's the chart:

Top 10 Games (New Physical Retail only; new releases bolded)
• The Last of Us (PS3)
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS)
• Minecraft (360)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II (360, PS3, PC, Wii U)
• NBA 2K13 (360, PS3, Wii, Wii U, PSP, PC)
• Injustice: Gods Among Us (360, PS3, Wii U)
• Donkey Kong Country Returns (3DS, Wii)
• Deadpool (360, PS3)
• Battlefield 3 (360, PS3, PC)
• Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (3DS)

Once again, be mindful that "these sales figures represent new physical retail sales of hardware, software and accessories, which account for roughly 50 percent of the total consumer spend on games."

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?