The gaming industry has a handful of trusted sources, including the NPD Group, which has now released its list of best-selling video games and consoles for October 2022. The NPD Group is a market research company that provides precise and reliable data related to the video games industry. NPD's August list of best-selling games featured many notable titles like Madden NFL 23, Saints Row, Marvel's Spider-Man, and MultiVersus. Mat Piscatella, the Executive Director at the NPD Group, shared multiple images containing the best-selling games across various platforms on his Twitter handle. He has provided individual lists of PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox and a consolidated list of all the platforms, including PC. As many would expect, there are multiple new entries in every list, as some big name titles were released in October.As expected, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 topped every list after witnessing a spectacular launch in late October. Modern Warfare 2 has broken many records and is selling faster than Call of Duty: Vanguard by roughly 40%. Furthermore, Gotham Knights was another prominent name that occupied the second spot in the list of the best-selling games for PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Despite performing well on the commercial stage, Gotham Knights has received a lukewarm response from critics who have criticized its mission quality, combat, and story.
NHL 23 was the only other title in the list of best-selling games across platforms. In addition, Star Ocean: The Divine Force and PGA Tour 2K23 were the two new names on the PlayStation list. At the same time, many new game titles appeared in best-selling Nintendo Switch games, with Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope topping the sales charts. The second and third spots are also occupied by newcomers, Bayonetta 3 and Persona 5. Splatoon 3, last month's leader, slipped to the fourth rank, while NieR: Automata debuted at the eighth spot.
The consolidated list shows the top 20 games from all platforms, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 leads the pack ahead of Gotham Knights. The next three are all sports games from Electronic Arts: Madden NFL 23, NHL 23, and FIFA 23. Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, the Switch sales leader, occupied the fifth spot. Mat Piscatella also shared a chart of the cumulative sales of 2022 showing Elden Ring as the leader, a game that also finished tenth in October's consolidated list.
Piscatella also provided general industry data about US consumer spending on video games and related accessories, including hardware, DLC, and subscriptions. The data shows a net change of zero percentage points but a 2% increase in video game content like physical and digital games. Meanwhile, video game hardware and accessories sales fell by 10% and 8%, respectively.