The Division 2, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice dominate March NPD alongside Nintendo Switch

News by Sherif Saed Contributing Editor

Published on April 24, 2019

March's NPD report brings some disappointing news, and reveals a few expected winners.

The NPD report covering US retail video game software, and hardware sales for March has arrived. The data includes digital figures from participating publishers, but most are still limited to retail.

Overall spending has declined by 11% in March, amounting to $1.2 billion. Software, hardware, game cards and accessories all saw declines during the month. Despite a decent February, the drop in spending in March caused the first quarter to decline by 2%.

This is in large part due to drops in hardware sales, which are expected at the tail end of the current generation of consoles.

Hardware

Hardware declined, perhaps a little sharper than expected, by 15% in March, and 13% for the quarter. Unsurprisingly, the Switch dominated March, as well as the entire quarter in both dollar, and unit sales.

Software

Video game software brought in $547 million in sales, an 11% drop over the same period last year. Overall, the first quarter saw a 2% growth in software sales.

The Division 2 was March's biggest release, selling more (dollar sales) than any other game, and becoming Ubisoft's sixth highest-selling game ever. This makes the loot shooter the second best-selling game in 2019 so far.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice landed at number two in March, selling more copies during its launch month than any other FromSoftware game, except Dark Souls 3. Sekiro is now the eighth best-selling game of 2019 so far.

Devil May Cry 5, another big March release, only managed the number four spot on the list. Devil May Cry 5 now holds the second-highest launch month sales in the franchise, trailing Devil May Cry 4.

The third best-selling game of March is MLB 19: The Show, breaking franchise launch month sales records. Kingdom Hearts 3 continued to sell during March, and is now the best-selling game in the franchise.