New U.S. Video Game Sales Report Reveals the Best Sellers of 2019 & the Decade

It’s the last sales report of the decade!

Last night, industry tracking firm NPD Group shared a number of figures on the U.S. games market for December, 2019 as a whole plus the entire decade beginning way back in 2010. Get ready for lots of juicy stats!

Not wasting anytime, let’s start with December and expand to broader time frames after that.

During a period that includes the usual holiday push, domestic consumer spending in December totaled $3 billion which is down around 15% since last year’s figure. Softness occurred in all major categories, as gains for Nintendo Switch couldn’t offset other declines.

Software spending in December landed at $1.1 billion, 13% lower than last year’s corresponding month. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was again the month’s top selling title. Separately, the Hardware segment dipped 17% to $973 million as Nintendo Switch continues its streak as the month’s best-selling platform. The final category of Accessories & Game Cards saw consumers spend $869 million during the month, which is down 14% year-over-year. The Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 marked its second straight month leading this category.

We can attribute continued weakness here to tough comparables in late 2018 which featured the popularity of games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Marvel’s Spider-Man, plus the sustained strength of Fortnite which really bolstered accessory sales last year in particular. We know this later console cycle decline is expected, though December 2019 is more pronounced than it would be due to record-setting software releases last year.

The chart below courtesy of NPD Group shows monthly comparisons within each segment during Decembers of the past five years.

Here’s the list of the top selling games for the month of December.

Top-Selling Games of December 2019 (Physical & Digital Dollar Sales):

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
2. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
3. Madden NFL 20
4. NBA 2K20
5. Luigi’s Mansion 3*
6. Pokémon Sword*
7. Mario Kart 8*
8. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
9. Pokémon Shield*
10. Minecraft#
11. Grand Theft Auto V
12. Red Dead Redemption 2
13. FIFA 20
14. Just Dance 2020
15. Need for Speed: Heat
16. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*
17. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening*
18. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe*
19. Super Mario Party*
20. Ring Fit Adventure

Before moving into 2019, I’d like to shout out a couple individual team accomplishments.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was released in November and held the second spot in the chart for a second month in a row during December, plus jumped up the annual ranks to 6th overall as we’ll see in a bit. With only a couple months of tracking, the third-person action game is now officially the best-selling of all time from developer Respawn Entertainment, known mostly for creating the Titanfall series. The team had a heck of a year between this and free-to-play hit Apex Legends.

Switching to sports, PlayStation 4 exclusive MLB The Show 19 is now the top-selling baseball game ever in the States since tracking began in the mid-90s. Based on dollar sales since its release in March 2019, it passed up MVP Baseball 2004 to take the top spot within this specific segment. Considering all the titles released over the years plus it being a platform exclusive really shows how much of a home run Sony’s San Diego Studio scored in 2019.

Speaking of 2019, let’s expand our discussion to chat on full year figures. Graphic above maps out the last few years as a reference.

Overall games industry spending in 2019 reached $14.6 billion, which is off 13% compared to 2018. Within this total, annual spending on Software declined 9% to $6.6 billion. Nintendo Switch console games experienced growth, the only platform to do so. Hardware sales in 2019 dropped 22% to $3.9 billion, while Accessories & Game Cards category dipped 7% to $4.1 billion. On the year, the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller led all accessory sales.

Switch itself was of course the major story of the year on the console side, as it led each monthly chart during the year and was the top-selling platform of 2019. Its new Lite model bolstered demand after its release in September such that the family as a whole saw annual gains compared to 2018. At last count, Nintendo announced Switch sales in the Americas passed 15 million units, which is just over a third of the latest global figure. Titles like mainline Pokémon and the surprising Luigi’s Mansion 3 plus ongoing support for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate contribute to its continued popularity as Nintendo takes advantage of a brief lull in the life cycle of other platform manufacturers.

In terms of individual software, it’s no surprise that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was the year’s leading seller after dominating the monthly chart since its release back in October when it shot to the top of the year-to-date list. This marks the 11th straight year that a game in the franchise has led the annual chart, as seen below by the full rankings.

Top-Selling Games of 2019 (Physical & Digital Dollar Sales):

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
2. NBA 2K20
3. Madden NFL 20
4. Borderlands 3
5. Mortal Kombat 11
6. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
7. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
8. Kingdom Hearts 3
9. Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
10. Mario Kart 8*
11. Grand Theft Auto V
12. Red Dead Redemption 2
13. Minecraft#
14. FIFA 20
15. Anthem
16. Pokémon Sword*
17. Resident Evil 2 Remake
18. Luigi’s Mansion 3*
19. Days Gone
20. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe*

Finally, we’re going even bigger. Despite what naysayers would have you believe, 2019 is in fact the end of the decade that began back in 2010. Which means it’s time to recap industry sales and the games with the broadest success.

Adding together each year in aggregate, total consumer spending on the games industry in the U.S. for the decade ending 2019 totaled over $150 billion.

Sony’s PlayStation 4 ended as the top-selling gaming console of the decade domestically, one in which it saw competition from its own PlayStation 3 platform, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Xbox One launches plus Nintendo’s Wii U and Switch. While we don’t have exact unit sales figures locally, its milestone of 106 million sales worldwide cements it as the second best selling home console ever.

Flipping to the software side, Take-Two Interactive’s Grand Theft Auto V ended as the single best selling game of the decade in the States. The latest in the crime drama franchise from Rockstar Games released in 2013 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, topping the annual chart during its release year.

After its Xbox One and PlayStation 4 release in 2014, the open world game went on to Top 3 results the next two years and Top 11 finishes in every single year since. Boosted now by its ongoing online mode, it’s truly the biggest console game of the generation. It became one of only a handful of titles to pass 100 million unit sales globally back in 2018 as shared on an earnings call. As it stands currently, Grand Theft Auto V boasts an impressive 115 million copies shipped and I wouldn’t be surprised if that figure increases by millions when we hear another update from Take-Two early next month.

Unsurprisingly, Call of Duty earned the top spot as the best-selling gaming franchise of last decade. Like, to the point where there’s just as many games within the series on the full decade list as those outside of the series as we’ll see in a moment. The appetite of the American casual audience for multiplayer, competitive shooters is persisting. There’s no.. fatigue with military shooters just yet.

Below are the full rankings for the span from 2010 to present day along with each game’s release year for reference. Fair warning that it might be a bit redundant.

Top-Selling Games of the Decade, 2010 – 2019 (Physical & Digital Dollar Sales):

1. Grand Theft Auto V (2013)
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010)
3. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (2012)
4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011)
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (2015)
6. Call of Duty: Ghosts (2013)
7. Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)
8. Call of Duty: World War 2 (2017)
9. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (2018)
10. Minecraft (2011)
11. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (2014)
12. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
13. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
14. Mario Kart 8 (2014)
15. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (2016)
16. Battlefield 1 (2016)
17. Battlefield 4 (2013)
18. Destiny (2014)
19. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)
20. Star Wars Battlefront (2015)

Whew. Enough stats for ya?

2019 wasn’t necessarily a banner year for blockbuster game releases or massive sales overall, though it had plenty of quality releases that won’t ever top the charts. Expanding to the decade, it’s somewhat repetitive and predictable to see so many military shooters and almost disheartening to see a lack of new properties other than the likes of Minecraft and Destiny.

Moving into 2020 and beyond, my hope is that we see more diversity at the upper end when we regroup in ten years (whoa!) though I’m not overly confident this will be the case as publishers move towards the model of even more sequels, ongoing games and projects within established brands.

Only time will tell!

For now, check out my buddy Mat Piscatella’s post on Twitter which has deets on individual platform results and more. Or the NPD Games page for additional insights. Next month will bring the first rankings of the new decade, and while it will be quiet on the new release front, we should still have a lot of fun! Thanks for visiting.

^Digital PC Sales Not Included, *Digital Sales Not Included, #Digital Sales on Consoles Included

Sources: Activision Blizzard, Nintendo, NPD Group, Sony Corp, Take-Two Interactive.

-Dom