Sony and the newest Madden NFL title dominated last month with the NPD Group officially revealing its video game sales data for the month of August. The market research company has become one of the premiere sources for tracking sales of both games and gaming hardware within the United States. The NPD Group regularly releases its monthly best-selling games list, as well as cumulative rankings of game sales throughout the year. Now, the newest report from NPD's Mat Piscatella gives an inside look at gaming sales during August.
An extensive report posted to Piscatella's Twitter gave a plethora of data for games and hardware sales during the month of August with the PS5 leading the way. Piscatella revealed that Sony's PlayStation 5 topped gaming hardware sales in the US during August, despite Sony's announcement of a PS5 price hike late in the month. The report also confirmed that the Nintendo Switch continued to lead all consoles in hardware sales throughout the year. Notably, both the Xbox Series X and PS5 were said to have experienced "double digit percentage growth" in sales compared to last year's numbers.
The report from Piscatella went on to detail August's sales for individual games with EA Sports' Madden NFL 23 leading the charge, fresh off the release of the annual football game. The newly released Saints Row reboot followed shortly after in second place with Marvel's Spider-Man seeing a major jump to hit third in August. Elden Ring and MultiVersus rounded out the Top 5 for August with both falling from their second and first-place positions last month, respectively.
The Top 20 for August showed plenty of other interesting details about sales for both old and new games. Besides the previously mentioned Madden NFL 23 and Saints Row, ATLUS' Soul Hackers 2 was the only new game to crack the monthly Top 20, finishing at 15th. Several older games continue to hold strong positions in the monthly rankings as well with Mario Kart 8 and Minecraft both finishing just outside the Top 5. Nintendo was the most-represented publisher in the August ranking with five games featured in the Top 20 for August.
The NPD Group's most recent ranking comes as the gaming world is gearing up for a busy holiday season. Several major multi-platform games are slated to launch throughout the last few months of 2022 with Overwatch 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 among the highlights. Sony and Nintendo are also bringing major console exclusives during the end of the year with Sony's God of War Ragnarok and Nintendo releasing new Pokemon and Bayonetta games. Fans on every console will look to have plenty in store throughout the rest of the year.