- Videogame sales were up 6% Y/Y in total in October, as some key pre-holiday software releases again made up for slipping hardware.
- Overall sales were at $875.7M, according to NPD Group. Hardware revenues dropped 20% to $215.2M, and accessories spending fell 24% to $121M.
- “Unit sales for the Xbox One (MSFT +1.7%) brand of hardware grew by 8% compared to last October," said NPD's Sam Naji, as pricing for Xbox One hardware dropped 17% with a lower priced One S Minecraft bundle. The month's best-selling hardware, though, was the PS4 (SNE +1.1%) Slim 500 GB Uncharted 4: A Thief's End bundle. And Nintendo's (OTCPK:NTDOY +3.4%) 3DS saw its fifth straight month of Y/Y growth.
- Meanwhile, videogame software spending on console platforms rose 31% to $505.7M, and PC game software jumped 172% to $33.8M, thanks to "popular new games that included Battlefield 1, Mafia III, Gears of War 4, Titanfall 2 and Civilization VI," said Naji.
- Individual games (ranked by dollar sales): Battlefield 1 (EA +1%) took the top spot, followed by Mafia III (TTWO +4.7%) and Gears of War 4 (NASDAQ:MSFT). FIFA 17 (NASDAQ:EA) was fourth and NBA 2K17 (NASDAQ:TTWO) fifth.
- Rounding out the top 10: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Softworks), WWE 2K17 (TTWO), Civilization VI (TTWO), Titanfall 2 (EA) and Madden NFL 17 (EA).