The NPD Group has released its latest monthly sales report, revealing which games, consoles, and accessories sold the best in January 2020 in the United States.
Starting with games, Dragon Ball Z: Kakorot was the month’s top-seller, and its launch-month sales were the third-highest in franchise history, following Dragon Ball: Fighterz and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare finished No. 2 in January, marking the first month since release that it fell to the second sales position. While it’s dropped down the charts, it remains the best-selling game over the past 12 months.
Another notable move was made by Grand Theft Auto V, which re-entered the Top 5 for the first time since August 2019. As announced previously, GTA 5 is the best-selling video game in history for the United States.
Total sales for games dropped 31 percent to $311 million. The downturn was driven by a difficult comparison to January 2019 which saw the release of big games like Kingdom Hearts III and Resident Evil 2.
Moving to hardware, the Nintendo Switch was January 2020’s best-selling console in terms of unit and dollar sales. It wasn’t all good news, however, as the Switch, the PS4, and the Xbox One all experienced year-over-year sales declines in January, which led to a 35 percent decrease in sales year-over-year to $129 million. January is historically a difficult month for console sales, as it follows the very busy holiday shopping season.
In terms of accessories, the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller was the top-seller in January 2020, which is a position it’s held since launch in November. According to the NPD, it’s the fifth fastest-selling accessory in US history. Total spending on accessories and game card sales for January 2020 reached $238 million, which is down 11 percent.
Total spending for January 2020–comprising games, hardware, and accessories–amounted to $678 million, which is down 26 percent. The NPD said this downturn was attributed mainly to a “lighter” slate of new releases and “late cycle hardware dynamics” for the PS4 and Xbox One.
With the PS4 and Xbox One entering the end of their lifecycles, it’s expected that sales would decrease. Both Sony and Microsoft have new consoles coming later this year in the form of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.
Best-Selling January 2020 Games (US)
- Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot
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