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...to be found within a report thrown together by Game Informer magazine, using only the finest of NPD sales data. Within, then, you'll find the five best-selling DS & PSP games (in the US) of all time.
Christmas approaches, Britain. That explains the resurgence of Nintendo-related content after a few week's break. Also explains the continued presence of a new Call of Duty game atop the charts, because Britain has always gone bananas for Call of Duty. Know what else Britain has usually gone bananas for? Need for Speed. So it's quite surprising to see that the latest entry in a series that has traditionally topped the holiday sales charts could only debut at #12 & #13. You done with NFS, Britain?
Three big games debuted in Britain last week, and those three slotted neatly into the top four positions. Call of Duty: World at War took out the top spot for the week on 360 (while the PS3 version came in third), followed by Wrath of the Lich King, followed by marriage-destroyer Football Manager 2009. Pity the wives and girlfriends of Britain this week, dear readers.
Thanks to the NPD Group and, uh, Deutsche Bank, we have a lovely graph that shows the current install base for each of the three current-gen home consoles. Being a graph, it's more fun than just the numbers, since we can track each console's performance in the months/years since it launched. The 360, it's taking things nice and easy at 11.6 million. The PS3 is taking things perhaps a little too nice and easy, at 5.7 million. And the Wii, well, that sharp red line is telling you that it's sold 13.4 million consoles in only two years.
Wii U.S. Installed Base Now Leads Xbox 360 by Almost 2 Million [GameDaily]
Time for the NPD Group's monthly recap of the PC gaming world's sales trends. While this data only covers bricks-n-mortar sales - and as such doesn't give us the whole picture - with so many high-profile PC titles being released in the month it looks a lot more, well, respectable than normal. While previous months have seen NPD's charts looking like a Maxis/Blizzard reach-around, October is full of new, "proper" games, like Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Red Alert 3 and Crysis: Warhead.
All hail the top ten-selling games for October, as they are showered in glory and accolades from an adoring public. And while you're hailing, spare a thought for those games that sold OK, but not well enough to make the top ten. Below you'll find the games that finished 11-20 for the month. Like Connor MacLeod from the Clan MacLeod already said, Guitar Hero dominates with three entries, while FIFA shows the round ball game isn't the hit in the US it is in the Old World. Feel-good story of the day? It's Kirby - yes, Kirby Super Star Ultra - doing the DS proud, coming in at #13.
The NPD sales charts are traditionally a little...sketchy when it comes to PC sales. But for the week ending November 1, they look right on the money, with Fallout 3 taking not just the top spot, but 3rd and 9th spot as well with the two collectors editions. With the game still charting well on both Steam and Direct2Drive, you can easily see where a lot of those 4.7 million shifted copies went.
Lots of big-name debuts in Britain last week. Gears of War 2, for example. LittleBigPlanet, for example. And those two did predictably well, coming in at #1 and #2 respectively. But you know what we're going to focus on? Third place. Because that went, in the face of both of the aforementioned title's marketing onslaughts, to dear old Professor Layton on the DS. Well played, Professor.
One of the most feel-good stories of the year has got to be the unholy alliance between NPD/GfK/Enterbrain, that lets us see - every three months, at least - what the biggest-selling games are not in the US, Europe or Japan, but in the world. Last time we checked, the best-seller was GTA IV. This time around, for the quarter running from July-September? It's Madden. Madden, followed by daylight.
In both the US and Japan, we're able to compare how well each console and handheld is performing by looking at hard numbers. It's handy, it's useful. But in Europe? The companies responsible for tracking sales - GfK and ChartTrack being the two biggest - keep the data to themselves. They're not for public consumption, and are only ever available for paying customers; namely, platform holders, publishers and marketing types. But! It looks like we've found a temporary loophole. Nintendo obviously pay the various sales trackers money for the data. They then presented the data at a financial results briefing in Japan last week. Then that data found its way onto the internet. And now we can see it. Above, you can see the weekly sales performance of each of the three home consoles across Europe in 2008. The Wii dominates, as expected. And the 360 languishes in last, as expected, although the recent price cuts seem to be having some effect on sales.
Nintendo Results Briefing [via Captain Smoker & UK:R]
