It’s Call of Duty season, but the annual launch window for the latest title in the best-selling video game franchise in tracked U.S. history was two weeks shorter this year.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare blasted into retail as the best-selling game of October, and is now the best-selling game of this year-to-date. This marks the 12th consecutive year that a Call of Duty game has secured the top spot in its release month. Despite the success, Modern Warfare had two fewer weeks of October sales when compared to last year’s Call of Duty Black Ops 4.
According to the NPD Group, overall sales for the entire video game category — including hardware, software, and accessories — was $1.03 billion, a 34% decline versus last year, but the second-biggest October this decade trailing the record-setting $1.57 billion last year. In terms of overall software sales, this October’s $182 million was a 41% decrease from the same period last year.
TOP 20 Video Game Titles | October 2019
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Activision)
- The Outer Worlds (Take 2 Interactive)
- Luigi’s Mansion 3 (Nintendo)
- Madden NFL 20 (Electronic Arts)
- NBA 2K20 (Take 2 Interactive)
- Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint (Ubisoft)
- WWE 2K20 (Take 2 Interactive)
- FIFA 20 (Electronic Arts)
- Borderlands 3 (Take 2 Interactive)
- Ring Fit Adventure (Nintendo)
- The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (Nintendo)
- Mario Kart 8 (Nintendo)
- Minecraft (Multiple)
- Grand Theft Auto V (Take 2 Interactive)
- Mortal Kombat 11 (Warner Bros.)
- Overwatch (Activision Blizzard)
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo)
- Code Vein (Bandai Namco)
- Red Dead Redemption II (Take 2 Interactive)
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo)
Year-to-date software sales are down 7% at $4.5 billion, and overall spending across video game hardware, software, accessories, and game cards is down 10% at $9.29 billion.
Once again, the biggest decrease is a 41% drop in hardware sales, continuing the downward trend as it nears the end of the cycle for current-generation systems and the industry looks ahead to the next-gen systems that will begin launching late next year. Repeating the performance of recent quarters, the only gains are for Nintendo Switch, which remains the best-selling system of the year.
There are still some new titles that could really move the needle this holiday season, including this week’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, new installments of the Pokémon franchise, and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
