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GTA5 tops PS4 digital sales charts for December
Gamers who found a PlayStation 4 under their Christmas trees last month very quickly turned their holiday cheer into murderous bloodshed, as Sony revealed that Rockstar's remastered port of Grand Theft Auto 5 ranked as the PlayStation 4's most popular digital purchase in the month of December. GTA 5 beat out Minecraft: PlayStation 4 Edition, Battlefield 4, and The Walking Dead: Season Two to claim the platform's top digital sales spot last month. Digital versions of Minecraft: PlayStation 3 Edition and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare ranked as the PlayStation 3's best digital sellers in December, while Minecraft: PlayStation Vita Edition and Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment headed up the PS Vita charts. December was also a big month for classic RPGs. Konami's recently reissued Suikoden 2 took top honors in Sony's PS Classics sales chart last month, leading over the original Suikoden and Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7. [Image: Rockstar]
Minecraft, Battlefield 4, Terraria top December's PSN sales charts
Sony has listed the top-selling PlayStation Network games across all of its platforms in December, outlining the most popular digital releases in the month following the PlayStation 4's launch. EA DICE's Battlefield 4 ranks in as PSN's biggest-selling PlayStation 4 game in December, while Call of Duty: Ghosts emerged as the platform's most popular digital upgrade. Minecraft: PlayStation 3 Edition rose to the top of the PS3's charts in its debut month, meanwhile, beating out the first episode of The Walking Dead's second season and Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 5. 505 Games' Terraria led PS Vita software sales last month, as Media Molecule's Tearaway and Drinkbox Studios' Guacamelee! trailed close behind at second and third place. The full platform-specific sales charts are available at the PlayStation Blog.
Guacamelee dominates April's PSN charts in US and Europe
Sony reports that DrinkBox Studios' side-scrolling luchador brawler Guacamelee emerged as last month's biggest seller on the PlayStation Network, topping the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita sales charts in North America and Europe. Guacamelee launched in both regions the week of April 9, and was bolstered by a week-long sale for PlayStation Plus members. The game beat out Terraria and the downloadable version of Square Enix's Tomb Raider for the top PS3 chart spot stateside, and overtook Sony's Soul Sacrifice and Muteki's Dragon Fantasy Book I to lead PS Vita sales. Over in Europe, Guacamelee toppled PSN favorites Journey, Hitman: Blood Money HD and Crysis to champion the PS3 sales list, and outsold Urban Trial Freestyle and Sound Shapes in a no-holds-barred Triple Threat match on the Vita.
Guild Wars 2 dominates European sales
Guild Wars 2 is on a goodwill tour through Europe, and it appears that the crowds love ArenaNet's latest release. The fantasy title has topped the charts in not one, not two, but 10 countries in the region. NCsoft reports that Guild Wars 2 is at the number one sales spot for UK, Germany, France, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, and Belgium. And as the saying goes, when you win over Finland, you've won over the world. ArenaNet President Mike O'Brien is bowled over by the accomplishment: "Our games have always been well-received in Europe, but this level of enthusiasm is both awesome and humbling. It also impresses upon us the responsibility we have to our players and explains why we've taken steps recently to constrain sales of Guild Wars 2 to ensure the highest quality of service. Of course, we hope to remedy this in the near future." Even with ArenaNet temporarily halting sales from its website, Guild Wars 2 is selling strong elsewhere. Amazon currently has it at both the #1 and #2 position on its top video game sales chart.
MMO tops Japan's sales charts on the Xbox 360
In the world of console gaming, Japan tends to strongly support their hometown champions -- although whether or not the sprawling multinational corporate behemoths of Nintendo and Sony actually need that suppport is debatable. Microsoft's Xbox 360 has generally faced slow sales in the nation and a lack of popular games on the platform. But it's gotten a boost from the strong sales of Monster Hunter Frontier Online, an MMO exclusive to the platform that's made it to the top of the Japanese sale charts. Not out of all Xbox games -- out of the entire country. The newest installment of the long-running series is a port of a 2007 PC version, beating out several other strong contenders for the countrywide sales figures. Although the Monster Hunter series has been popular in Japan, there's no word on the MMO being released outside of the country. Still, it seems a good sign that you can sell good numbers for a ported game on an unpopular console -- something Square-Enix may well want to consider for the future.
Sentinel's Fate rises to the top of the charts
The EverQuest II players have spoken. The results are in, and the sales of the newest expansion, Sentinel's Fate took the #1 spot in the PC game sales charts for a second week in a row. We'd bet there will be much celebratory battleground playing or virtual pillow-fighting at the Sony Online Entertainment offices today. The sixth expansion to EverQuest II, Sentinel's Fate is chock full of content, taking players from level 80 to 90. Packed into this expansion are two new overland zones, 15 new dungeons, 400 new quests and over 2,000 new items to check out. There's also some pretty cool armor and 500 station cash to go shopping with as well. Not too shabby. If you're curious for more details about the expansion, Sera's compiled a great roundup of our coverage. For now, we'll just say grats on the ding, EverQuest II team!
Aion and Fallen Earth dominate Steam/D2D charts
Aion. Champions Online. Fallen Earth. Three MMOs intended for three different audiences and yet they all have one thing in common: September gaming sales chart domination! The latest numbers on Steam and Direct2Drive show a bit of a re-shuffling compared to the last time we checked in.Steam (9/20 - 9/26)1st - Aion Collector's Edition2nd - Aion Standard Edition3rd - Fallen EarthDirect2Drive (9/20 - 9/26)1st - Aion Collector's Edition 2nd - Aion Standard Edition 3rd - Fallen Earth8th - Champions OnlineChampions Online was launched a few weeks before both FE and Aion, so we believe that might have something to do with their now lagging sales (according to these charts). Be sure to check out our one-month checkup on CO. Both Aion and FE appear to be doing quite well for themselves since release. Considering the lack of marketing behind FE and its more design, we're happy to see it up ranking so high. Actually, it makes us warm and fuzzy to see any MMO selling well, so kudos to all!
MMOs top Steam and Direct2Drive weekly charts
We told you September was going to be a crazy month for MMOs! It seems that for the week of 9/6 to 9/12, MMOs topped both the Steam and Direct2Drive sales charts. Aion: Collector's Edition was first and Champions Online second on Steam and and it was the same for D2D, except they swapped first and second positions. Fallen Earth (preorder) was third on D2D, while not for sale on Steam. The Aion: Standard Edition took tenth on Steam and fifth on D2D.It's also worth mentioning that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, while not an MMO, ranked highly for the week as well (third on Steam and fourth on D2D). BioWare announced a special $10 deal for KotOR at PAX last week for fans of their upcoming MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. People buying KotOR through D2D will receive a 25% discount on SWTOR when it releases. Speaking of D2D, you should keep your eye on their special Five Year Anniversary page because next Monday ten RPG/MMOs will be going on sale for $5.00 each!Update: Thanks for the fix, cb!
Aion Collector's Edition pre-orders top Steam weekly sales
It's been a stellar week of digital pre-order sales for Aion, with the upcoming title taking top honors on Steam's weekly sales chart. Specifically, it was the Collector's Edition of the game that did so well. Keep in mind that this is not the same as the Limited Collector's Edition, which contains physical items like the Asmodian Daeva figurine that might be too difficult to distribute digitally with our current technology. It does however still contain a handful of in-game items that the regular edition doesn't. The pre-sale of both versions comes with guaranteed access to a couple of closed beta events, as well as an attribute boosting hat, an experience boosting talisman and a "special effects ring".Interestingly, the pre-order for the regular edition didn't crack Steam's top 10. It seems that, just like with the Limited Collector Edition from brick-and-mortar stores, people are happy to pay just a little bit more for that extra something. Steam is selling the regular pre-order for US$49.99 and the collector's edition for US$59.99. The weekly sales chart is based on revenue, so Aion's asking price would have helped it beat popular budget-priced titles.[Via Shacknews]
Acer poised to beat Dell, become number two PC maker
Interesting piece in the New York Times today about Acer -- the company is about to ride the tidal wave of netbooks and other el-cheapo computers straight to the number two spot on the PC sales chart. That's a big deal -- no non-US company has ever made it so high -- and it's interesting that the strategies Acer took to get there are the same things Dell's been trying to do lately: it's heavy on low-cost, stylish laptops and netbooks, it keeps inventory extremely lean, and it relies on an extensive set of retail partnerships in Europe. What's more, the Aspire One has been the best-selling netbook for a while now, and we'd say Acer's way out in front of the CULV thin-and-light race with the Timeline -- in fact, we'd say the only open question here is whether the company can take all this computing success and translate it to something worthwhile in the smartphone space. Based on what we've seen so far, we've got our doubts, but we'll see what those super-secret Android sets look like before we place our bets.
Activision passes on PC Gaming Alliance membership
It could be pretty easily argued that Blizzard is one of the biggest PC gaming development houses in the business today -- they consistently own both the sales charts and the playtime stats in terms of PC gaming. But Activision-Blizzard has quietly confirmed that they've passed on a membership to the PC Gaming Alliance, a group that claims to be "the authoritative voice on PC gaming worldwide." Activision, for their part, says that they just couldn't justify the membership fee, and this isn't the first industry group that they've snubbed: they famously left the ESA and their big yearly conference at E3 last year.The PCGA claims that this isn't a big setback -- despite this and a few other losses, they say their numbers have grown, and they cite a few other big still-members, including Microsoft, Nvidia, and Intel. But given how much of an influence Activsion-Blizzard is in PC gaming, it's hard to say you're the "authoritative voice" of the platform when you don't have any formal connection to the biggest developer/publisher in the industry.What does this mean to us players? Probably nothing right now -- the PCGA is right: the loss of Activision probably won't affect their work at all. But Blizzard, for better or worse, is being steered by Activision away from the industry at large. Right now, with events like BlizzCon and a huge reputation of their own, they don't need to be tied into these industry groups. But that may not always be the case.
Rhythm Tengoku Gold tops the Japanese charts
In contrast to yesterday's North American game charts for August, the latest software sales figures out of Japan aren't lead by Madden (and don't feature Too Human, nor will they ever). Instead, Nintendo's superb Rhythm Tengoku Gold (Rhythm Heaven when it launches here) beat out even the mighty Wii Fit to claim top spot.Ludwig should be pleased to see that Arika is in there at a respectable No. 4 and, just to save you the counting, yes, six of the top 10 games for the week are on Nintendo DS. Here's the full list, with weekly and life-to-date sales accounted for:1. Rhythm Tengoku Gold (Rhythm Heaven) – DS – 55,276 / 668,000 2. Wii Fit – Wii – 31,970 / 2,609,000 3. Blue Dragon Plus – DS – 21,174 / New 4. Afrika – PS3 – 18,567 / 57,000 5. J-League Winning Eleven 2008 Club Championship – PS2 – 18,342 / 136,000 6. Fire Emblem: New Shadow Dragons and the Blade of Light – DS – 17,349 / 222,000 7. Dragon Quest V – DS – 15,454 / 1,164,000 8. Daigasso! Band Brothers DX – DS – 14,688 / 326,000 9. Mario Kart Wii – Wii – 14,207 / 1,748,000 10. Inazuma Eleven – DS – 13,803 / 85,000[Via IGN]
Age of Conan continues sales domination
Another week, another round of retail domination by Funcom's indefatigable Age of Conan. They managed to sustain the momentum they demonstrated last week with the latest round of NPD PC game sales information for the week ending June 7. Age of Conan came in at number 1 again, while World of Warcraft followed up in its various retail incarnations in the 5, 7, and 9 spots. While we doubt they're even close to selling through the one million units they've shipped so far, things have to look extremely promising on their end.It's interesting to see the the twin juggernauts of Age of Conan and World of Warcraft so consistently dominate the PC sales charts. Where once Sims 2 and its expansions were the reigning retail champions, they're finally receiving some long overdue walloping at the hands of the best in the MMO genre. We anxiously await the day when Warhammer Online joins AoC and WoW on the sales charts and completely closes out the top 10.
X-Play lists Age of Conan at the top of PC game sales [updated]
Game|Life has reported on an interesting little tidbit included in a recent episode of X-Play -- apparently, Age of Conan has topped PC game sales charts for the month of March. As any anxious fan will tell you, the game is not due for release until the 20th of May, so provided that X-Play's assertion is correct, this sales dominance must have come from pre-orders. Also, we're assuming that topping the charts for March means, "for March thus far".If true, this bodes extremely well for the launch of AoC. We already know that a lot of people are excited for the game, but to beat everything else on the sales chart a good two months out from release is fairly incredible. Game|Life has contacted G4 to see if they can find out more, and are expecting to hear from them on Monday with some clarification on the source of their numbers.Update: G4 has said that their sales data came from Gamestop.
DS surpasses PlayStation 2 in Japanese lifetime sales
It's probably news to nobody at this point that during this past year, Nintendo fever swept through Japan like the Great Chicago Fire. Just by looking at a handful of recent hardware sales charts, the Big N's dominance over the land of the rising sun is explicitly clear -- the Wii always sold like hotcakes, and the DS Lite consistently took the top spot on the list. Over the holiday sales season, however, the DS earned its most notable bragging right to date, breaking the PS2 Japanese lifetime sales record by the skin of its teeth.According to recent Media Create sales numbers (as crunched and compiled by NeoGAF), the DS has sold 20,954,157 units to date in Japan, compared to the PS2's 20,901,468. Though Nintendo's touchable handheld hasn't yet approached the worldwide console sales record (an honor which the PS2 still holds by a considerable margin), being the highest selling console in one of the most-gaming centric nations in the world is still a pretty sizable victory. Grats, little guy.[Via DS Fanboy]
November NPD: big franchises, new consoles drive industry sales up 34% [update 1]
The above headline shouldn't come as a great surprise to many gamers, what with November having been a deadly obstacle course of top-tier franchises and console debuts. Surviving the month with wallet unscathed was quite impossible, a fact clearly reflected in the NPD's sales data for the period which typically sees manufacturers clash in full force, guns blazing. Consumers caught in the cash crossfire spent an impressive $1.7 billion in total, with console, software and accessory sales all seeing notable increases. The NPD's Anita Frazier told GameDaily BIZ that she expects this to be a record-breaking year for the industry, with total sales expected to come in at $14 billion. In the interest of having you maintain consciousness, we've put the most pertinent information into those convenient bullet-point things (it also ties in nicely with our earlier gun metaphor):Console Sales (units) DS: 918k PS2: 664k Game Boy Advance: 661k Xbox 360: 511k Wii: 476k PSP: 412k PS3: 197k Software Sales (units and sales grossed) Gears of War: 1 million -- $61.5 million Final Fantasy XII: 896k -- $49 million The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: 412k -- $20.2 million Guitar Hero II: 356k -- $20.2 million Check out the full report for even more numbers and commentary -- mind you don't go cross-eyed.[Update 1: PSP information added.]
PS3 launch jumpstarts PSP sales in North America
It looks like Sony's newest Playstation family member, the PS3, has come to the aide of its siblings, the PSP and PS2. Sony has announced the PSP's sales jumped by almost 30 percent in North America last week, during the PS3's launch.David Karraker, SCEA communications director, said the PS3 hype created "a halo effect on other Playstation products."I've said before this holiday season is going to be huge for the PSP's future success. If Sony can keep bringing great franchises to the PSP, get the PS1 emulator mess fixed and launch the GPS and camera peripherals soon, I think they will put themselves in a good spot for the coming year. [Via DCEmu]
Japanese hardware sales, Oct. 30 - Nov. 5: PSP overtakes its big brother
For the last few months, the PSP has not only been outsold by the Nintendo DS, but also the PS2. However, it seems like those days could be over as the PSP has begun outselling the PS2 for the last two weeks.- DS Lite: 113,097 45,584 (28.73%) - PSP: 23,725 2,183 (8.43%) - PS2: 20,982 850 (3.89%) - Xbox 360: 6,580 5,015 (320.45%) - GBA SP: 1,443415 (22.34%) - Game Boy Micro: 1,299 52 (3.85%) - Gamecube: 647 3 (0.47%) - DS Phat: 373 259 (227.19%) - GBA: 20 5 (33.33%) - Xbox: 0 7 (100.00%)It will be interesting to see how well the PSP does in the coming weeks with the launch of the Wii and PS3. The PSP has a strong lineup of games this winter, but Sony is going to have its work cut out for it to keep the PSP at the forefront of gamer's minds. Maybe Sony should start by adopting a new advertising campaign.[Source: Media Create]
Japanese hardware sales, Oct. 9-15: The gap closes
If there's one thing I can say about the PSP's sales, is they've been holding steady at right around 20,000-25,000 each week for a good while now. However, the DS Lite couldn't maintain its massive sales numbers it accumulated a few weeks ago when it sold nearly 275,000 units, which had more to do with Pokemon than anything else.- DS Lite: 104,487 19,650 (15.83%) - PS2: 24,727 3,537 (12.51%) - PSP: 21,603 553 (2.63%) - GBA SP: 2,299767 (50.07%) - Xbox 360: 1,743 358 (17.04%) - Game Boy Micro: 1,714 441 (34.64%) - Gamecube: 653 165 (33.81%) - DS Phat: 273 13 (5.00%) - GBA: 37 25 (208.33%) - Xbox: 3 5 (62.5%)The PSP doesn't have too many more releases this month with only Shinobido, Hot Shots Golf for GPS, Lost Regnum and Heaven's Will. It will be interesting to see if any of those games, especially Hot Shots, helps raise PSP sales the next couple weeks. [Source: Media Create]
Australian software chart, Sept. 25 - Oct. 1: BMX Bandit edition
Australia has given the world some really great things like Steve Irwin, kangaroos, Nicole Kidman and her first film - BMX Bandits, which just so happens to be one of my favorite childhood movies. So in honor of Steve, Nicole, BMX Bandits and kangaroos the world over, I bring you the Australian software chart.Top 10 games 1. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team (DS) 2. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team (GBA) 3. Kingdom Hearts 2 (PS2) 4. FIFA 2007 (PS2) 5. Lego Star Wars II (PS2) 6. AFL Premiership 2006 (PS2) 7. Test Drive Unlimited (Xbox 360) 8. SingStar Anthems bundle (PS2) 9. Tekken Dark Resurrection (PSP) 10. Saints Row (Xbox 360)It's nice to see a Tekken in the top 10 since PSP games haven't necessarily been tearing things up in Japan. However, it's clear that even the mighty Aussies have fallen victim to the disease that is Pokemon. Is no one safe?
