Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare was the best-selling recreation of 2016 regardless of all of your protests – however Battlefield 1 was sizzling on its heels

Call of Duty gained the 12 months. Again.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare predictably topped each the December 2016 and 2016 full 12 months charts within the newest version of NPD Group’s month-to-month report, which tracks new gross sales within the US solely.

The NPD’s Mat Piscatella stated that is the ninth consecutive 12 months Call of Duty has topped the all-formats December gross sales chart.

Battlefield 1 got here in second place, and truly generated 10% extra greenback income than Star Wars Battlefront in December 2015 – a fairly superb feat given the latter’s model recognition.

Looking at particular person platform charts, nonetheless, Final Fantasy 15 was the best-selling recreation on PS4, and loved the “best console launch month in the history of the franchise” with 19% extra new bodily items offered than Final Fantasy 13, and 54% extra in whole greenback income together with digital.

In portables, the winner was, after all, Pokemon Sun and Moon. The NPD stated the dual video games have offered over four.21 million items life so far, which is the very best the franchise has accomplished since 2007’s Pokemon Diamond and Pearl mixed with four.25 million items. Let’s see if Sun and Moon can overtake it.

NPD software program prime ten December 2016

Here’s the NPD’s chart for the month of December 2016. It’s price noting that Pokemon Sun and Moon each charted individually relatively than as a mixed title, and that the NPD doesn’t have entry to digital gross sales information on Nintendo titles. The RPG could nicely have been a good larger deal than the chart suggests, then.

You’ll discover Watch Dogs 2 held its place within the chart regardless of a variety of murmuring about its efficiency after its November launch. It didn’t flip up within the full-year chart nevertheless it’s definitely not a non-entity.

1. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
2. Final Fantasy 15 (PS4, Xbox One)
3. Battlefield 1 (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
4. Madden NFL 17 (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One)
5. NBA 2K17 (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One)
6. Watch Dogs 2 (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
7. Grand Theft Auto 5 (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One)
8. Pokemon Sun (3DS)
9. FIFA 17 (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One)
10. Pokemon Moon (3DS)

NPD software program prime ten full 12 months 2016

This chart is for 2016 as an entire. As standard, sports activities video games and shooters dominated the full-year charts, and Grand Theft Auto 5 refuses to surrender its maintain. The lengthy gross sales tail on Call of Duty every year means Black Ops 3 inevitably made an look.

Don’t be too involved for Final Fantasy 15 in final place; it launched very late within the 12 months, and did so nicely on the December chart, that it’s most likely doing simply fantastic as its gross sales tail extends by January and past.

Again, the NPD doesn’t have digital gross sales information for Battle.web titles, so Overwatch could rank rather more extremely than the chart suggests.

1. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
2. Battlefield 1 (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
3. The Division (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
4. NBA 2K17 (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One)
5. Madden NFL 17 (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One)
6. Grand Theft Auto 5 (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One)
7. Overwatch (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
8. Call of Duty: Black Ops three (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One)
9. FIFA 17 (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One)
10. Final Fantasy 15 (PS4, Xbox One)

PS4 dominates in 2016

As beforehand reported, the PS4 outsold the Xbox One in December 2016.

The NPD stated the PS4 Slim 500GB Uncharted four bundle was the best-selling console of the month with 1.2 million gross sales, whereas the PS4 Pro accounted for 18% of all November and December PS4 gross sales.

Meanwhile, the Xbox One loved an excellent month with a 10% unit gross sales enhance, and Nintendo shifted “an additional 4% of 3DS systems thanks to the heightened demand for Pokemon”.

Unfortunately, this didn’t translate to greenback progress because the decrease costs of just a few years on can’t stack up with figures generated nearer to launch.

“Although the combined ARP for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 systems decreased by 15%, consumers bought 7% fewer units,” Piscatella stated.

As a outcome, general gross sales for the month fell 20% year-on-year, whereas gross sales for the complete 12 months fell 24% on 2015’s figures.

General figures

Total trade spend for the month of December fell 15% year-on-year to $2.78 billion.

Console and moveable software program fell 12% to $1.19 billion, whereas PC software program fell 13% to $45.three million. Hardware fell 20% to $994.9 million, and equipment dropped 15% to $547.6 million.

For the 12 months whole, trade spend spend fell 12% from 2015’s figures, to $12.1 billion.

Console and moveable software program fell 6% to $5.79 billion, whereas PC software program grew 5% to $333.eight million. Hardware fell 24% to three.68 billion, and equipment dropped 6% to $2.35 billion.

Just to the touch on equipment, the NPD stated the toys-to-life class noticed a whopping 50% decline which was largely chargeable for the general class drop. Only LEGO Dimensions noticed progress, with Skylanders, Disney Infinity and Amiibo all drying up. Trend over?

As ever, keep in mind that these figures are lacking stacks of income sources for the video games trade as an entire – many digital sources, used recreation gross sales, leases and extra – in order that they don’t paint as grim an image as all of the declines counsel.