Ben-DutkaYou'll never guess what the top-selling video game of 2012 was. Not in a million years. …okay, that's probably not true.
The NPD Group released the sales results for both December and the full year, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II was the best-selling title in the US for both. It's the fourth consecutive year where a Call of Duty title led the yearly tallies. And MW3 was #8 in 2012, too.
The industry slid another 22% in December, though, down to $3.21 billion, and the entire year was down 22% as well, down to $13.26 billion from the $16.99 billion recorded in 2011. However, NPD Group analyst Liam Callahan reminded us that these stats only represent new physical retail sales of hardware, software and accessories, which is only about 50% of total consumer spending.
"When you consider our preliminary estimate for other physical format sales in December such as used and rentals at $217 million, and our estimate for digital format sales including full game and add-on content downloads including microtransactions, subscriptions, mobile apps and the consumer spend on social network games at $765 million, we would estimate the total consumer spend in December to be over $4.1 billion."
Microsoft reported 1.4 million Xbox 360 consoles sold in December, Nintendo moved 460,000 Wii U units during the month, and Wii U hardware sales generated $300 million, which is actually a little more than the original Wii did during that same span of time. But for the record, according to a recent IDC report , the PlayStation 3 has officially forged ahead of the 360 in terms of overall worldwide sales; 77 million to 76 million. And yes, the PS3 launched one year later, so…
One bright spot was the arrival of Far Cry 3 in December, which became the second-most successful December launch since the NPD began tracking sales back in 1995. In general, though, everything was down; hardware, software, and accessories. Let's hope that that aforementioned IDC prediction concerning a rebounding console market is true. Here are the top 10 games for December and for all of 2012:
TOP 10 GAMES FOR DECEMBER 2012
TOP 10 GAMES FOR 2012
Top 10 and #1 of 2012, Call of Duty BO2, you don't say?
Seriously though, the game released in November, less than two months to reach #1.
I was expecting to see Far Cry 3 somewhere in the top 10. I guess not.
Really? This doesn't surprise me, I love the game. I would imagine that this list isn't going to be very popular on this site. At least #1 won't be. HA HA
Would the official confirmation of a 1 million unit lead for Sony's PS3 over the 360 in global sales not be more of a story? Despite the 360 having been in the market for a little over a year more than PS3, PS3 has still outsold it.
77 > 76
You'd think, I've only seen murmurs of Sony's console war victory on the internet. It's like the elephant in the room.
*Flips over a table*
yah I'm pissed to.
It's impossible to beat out COD. The many children and tweens of this generation outweigh the few of us who see the money-grubbing, re-skinned annualization of activision's game. Once CoD finally falls from favor they will be in trouble because they aren't producing any other decent games besides Blizzard's creations, and those are every decade.
I figured Sony would pass Microsoft over time; It just made sense to me. The Xbox is a good platform but they don't produce any exclusive content-main reason I didn't re-purchase my console after it red-ringed.
With PS3 releasing amazing, exclusive games year after year, people are going to notice and pick one up for themselves. Just owning exclusive games gives you a library, a plethora of titles to explore. Xbox 360 barely has any exclusive titles and few that are good to boot.
Gears of War and the Halo Titles are great games to play but not many other standout titles come to mind. Personally I like Lost Odyssey and Mass Effect 1 for 360. Thats about 9-10 titles.
PS3 has the Uncharted, Infamous, Killzone 2/3, Ratchet & Clank Series (All-for-one was mediocre though), and Resistance Series. Include God of War, Heavy Rain, Demon Souls, and Journey. Thats 18 great titles and more still on the way