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July NPD: PS4 and The Last of Us lead a slow month of sales

New releases were very few in July and software sales showed, with The Last of Us leading July. Meanwhile, the PS4 reigned supreme once again in the console wars.

Ozzie Mejia

August 14, 2014 4:15 PM

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What's old is new again, which is not all that surprising when there's so little new out there. The Last of Us prevailed in the latest NPD report, coming out on top of very little competition. The lack of software sales were offset by a sharp increase in hardware sales from last year, with Sony once again declaring victory for the PlayStation 4 over Microsoft and the Xbox One.

The NPD group's Liam Callahan points out that the slow software month can be attributed to one missing annual staple. "July is typically a quiet month for software sales, representing about 5 percent of annual sales," he said. "Typically, NCAA Football launches in July and often ranks as the top game. As that title is no longer being produced, new launch sales declined steeply by close to 70 percent in July 2014."

The NPD group's combined format does not account for several other older titles having a strong July. In particular, Mario Kart 7 and Pokemon X and Y all enjoyed a healthy month of sales, as did the more-recent Tomodachi Life. The Last of Us was counted for both its Remastered PS4 version and its original PS3 release from last year and it beats out the retail versions of Minecraft and the World Cup-boosted FIFA 14. Watch Dogs and Mario Kart 8 round out the top five.

July 2014 Top 10 Games (New Physical Retail only; across all platforms incl. PC)

• The Last of Us (PS4, PS3)
• Minecraft (360, PS3)
• FIFA 14 (360, PS4, XBO, PS3, PSV)
• Watch Dogs (PS4, 360, PS3, XBO, PC)
• Mario Kart 8 (NWU)
• Call of Duty: Ghosts (XBO, 360, PS4, PS3, NWU, PC)
• Grand Theft Auto V (360, PS3)
• Sniper Elite III (PS4, XBO, 360, PS3)
• NBA 2K14 (360, PS3, PS4, XBO, PC)
• Lego Marvel Super Heroes (360, PS3, 3DS, NDS, PS4, NWU, XBO, PSV, PC)

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?