The NPD Group has announced the official stats on the state of gaming for June 2021. Gaming sales as a whole have risen considerably in the last year, and multiple new games have cracked the best-seller list. While the NPD Group’s findings are sometimes based on supposition rather than hard numbers, we can get a good picture for where the gaming industry is based on these findings.
According to the report, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is the top-selling game of June, which is impressive considering the relative scarcity of the PlayStation 5. Given that it’s touted as being the first true test of the PS5’s internal hardware, it’s probably not a surprise. Another game to rocket into the list is Mario Golf: Super Rush. According to Mat Piscatella, the NPD Group’s video game industry advisor, the game set a series record: “Launch month dollar sales were the highest ever achieved by a Mario Golf game. The previous high was set by Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, which launched for the Nintendo GameCube in July 2003.”
It wasn’t just the games that had a good month. The Xbox consoles led in dollar sales in June, while the Nintendo Switch led in unit sales. According to Piscatella, sales of the Xbox consoles were the best in a decade: “June dollar sales of Xbox consoles set a new record for the Xbox platform, besting the previous high set in June 2011.” The Switch is no slouch, either: it’s leading both in dollar and unit sales for the year so far.
As for the PS5, Piscatella says it’s still “the fastest unit selling console hardware platform in U.S. history,” so no one worry for Sony. Another one of the findings was that the DualSense controller is one of the best-selling game accessories right now — in fact, not only was the Midnight Black version of the controller the best-selling accessory, but three out of the four best-selling accessories were all DualSense variations.
Source: Mat Piscatella/Twitter
