Having already learned that the PlayStation 4 was the #1 selling system of 2015 in the United States, the full NPD report for 2015 has been released, and unsurprisingly, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 was the best-selling game of the year.
Total industry retail sales in the US for 2015 were identical to 2014, finishing at $13.13 billion. This breaks down to $4.86 billion in hardware (down 2%), $5.17 billion in software (down 2%), and $3.1 billion in accessories (up 12%).
NPD analyst Liam Callahan explained just how much better the PS4 and Xbox One are doing than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360:
After 26 months of sales, the combined cumulative sales of Xbox One and PS4 exceeds the 26 month total of the PS3 and Xbox 360 by 47 per cent. The lead from the prior generation has expanded due to the strong PS4 and Xbox One 2015 holiday, going from 38 per cent by the end of October, growing to 47 per cent by the end of November, and maintaining 47 per cent higher sales by the end of December.
With Black Ops 3 claiming #1 in software for 2015, Activision’s Rob Kostich said:
Call of Duty: Black Ops III was the top selling title of 2015 globally by a wide-margin in both units and dollars sold-thru. This also marks the seventh year in a row that Call of Duty has been the #1 selling franchise in North America, according to NPD. In fact, Call of Duty has surpassed 250 million units sold life-to-date worldwide. This achievement is thanks to the amazing experiences created by all of our development teams, and would not be possible without the incredible passion from the Call of Duty community. We congratulate Treyarch on creating an incredibly engaging and an enormously fun game with Black Ops III and look forward to what’s to come in 2016.
Here’s the top 10 selling games for all of 2015, which totals retail sales across all systems and includes Collectors Editions, GOTY Editions, and bundles, but not those bundled with hardware (sales by platform are ranked in brackets from highest-selling to least-selling):
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (XB1, PS4, 360, PS3, PC)
- Madden NFL 16 (PS4, XB1, 360, PS3)
- Fallout 4 (PS4, XB1, PC)
- Star Wars: Battlefront (XB1, PS4, PC)
- Grand Theft Auto V (PS4, XB1, 360, PS3, PC)
- NBA 2K16 (PS4, XB1, 360, PS3)
- Minecraft (360, XB1, PS3, PS4)
- Mortal Kombat X (PS4, XB1)
- FIFA 16 (PS4, XB1, 360, PS3)
- Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (XB1, PS4, 360, PS3, PC)
In 2014, the top three titles were Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Madden NFL 15, and Destiny.
[Source: Games Industry]
