The latest US sales charts make clear the changing state of video games, as Ghost Of Tsushima returns to number one thanks to the PC version.
Just a few years ago, almost no useful sales data was publicly released for the US. But while it’s still only a monthly chart, it now paints a much clearer picture of which games and consoles are selling well, both digitally and physically.
May is never a busy month for new releases, but the surprising new number one is Ghost Of Tsushima, which jumped from number 71 on the charts to number one, simply as a result of the PC version being released.
Console sales fell again for May, but it was still relatively good news for the PlayStation 5, which was once again the best-selling console and is now overtaking the PlayStation 4 again, at the same point in its lifecycle. By comparison, the Xbox Series X/S is still outselling the seven-year-old Switch, as its sales fell behind the pace set by the Xbox One.
Video game hardware spending in May fell 40% compared to 2023 (which was boosted by the launch of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom) and is down 30% for the year as a whole.
However, sales of the PlayStation 5 are now trailing 8% ahead of the PlayStation 4, for the first 43 months of sales. By comparison, the Xbox Series X/S is 13% behind the Xbox One and “slightly” behind the Xbox 360.
The US is by far the Xbox’s biggest market, but with sales stagnating there as well, it’s no surprise that Microsoft is looking for other ways to sell its games, with an increased focus on releases with many formats and support for alternative devices such as Amazon Fire Stick.
At the same time, the continued popularity of first-party PlayStation games on PC will no doubt encourage more, especially since Helldivers 2’s success this year is largely due to the PC version rather than the PlayStation 5 edition.
It also seems like it’s high time for a Ghost Of Tsushima sequel to be announced, but although job ads have made it clear that it’s in the works Sony has never talked about it publicly.
However, it’s likely that the actual best-selling game of the month was the remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Nintendo is one of only a few publishers (2K being the other major one) that doesn’t report its digital sales, so Paper Mario’s number two position is due to physical sales.
According to NPD’s Mat Piscatella, Ghost Of Tsushima was only ‘slightly’ ahead of Nintendo’s game, so once digital sales are added in it looks like it would have taken the top spot.
There were no new entries in the top 10, but PC-only game Homeworld 3 debuted at number 14 and F1 24 came in at number 18.
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