June 2016 NPD Report: Overwatch Wins as Hardware Sales Drop 42%

June 2016 may have been the first month the NPD tracked both physical and digital software sales, but it didn’t help improve the outcome, with total industry sales dropping 26% (compared to June 2015) to $652.2 million.

By category, hardware was down 42% to $181.5 million, console software was down 20% to $322 million, PC software was down 20% to $27.8 million, and accessories were down 6% to $120.9 million.

According to NPD analyst Liam Callahan, last year’s strong launch of Batman: Arkham Knight is partly to blame for this year’s drop:

Poor comparisons to last June, where software and hardware sales were bolstered by strong launches like Batman: Arkham Knight, led to a sharp… year-over-year decline in overall spending across software, hardware and accessories. Hardware’s drop in sales represented 58% of the overall decline in dollar volume compared to last June.

In fact, Arkham Knight sold five times the amount of unit and dollar sales generated by the biggest June 2016 new release, LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Overall, June 2016 launches “decreased 67%, translating to 1.8 million fewer units, and nearly $114 million fewer dollars.”

Looking at hardware, Callahan notes that average hardware prices are down, and there was a 32% decline in units sold. “[Current-generation] hardware, the primary driver of this decrease, saw sales decline 43%, or $117 million,” he added.

It’s not all bad news for the PlayStation 4 (which won June 2016) and Xbox One though, as “the combined cumulative hardware sales for these two consoles [after 32 months] exceed the sales of their predecessors by 40% at the same point in their lifecycles.”

Here’s the top 10 best-selling games of June 2016 (May 29 to July 2) in the United States through physical and digital retailers, keeping in mind that digital sales weren’t tracked for Uncharted 4, Doom, or Minecraft, and Battle.net sales weren’t tracked for Overwatch:

1. Overwatch
2. Grand Theft Auto V
3. LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens
4. Doom
5. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst
6. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
7. NBA 2K16
8. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
9. Destiny: The Taken King
10. Minecraft

Do you think the PS4 Neo, Xbox One Slim, and Project Scorpio confirmations are to blame for the hardware decline?

[Source: Games Industry, Games Beat]