The video game industry is quickly heading towards the end of the year, which typically means the rush of massive of AAA games is right around the corner. Games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Fallout 76, and of course, Red Dead Redemption 2 are almost sure bets to rake in millions in cash and will likely compete to see which game will reach the top of the sales charts. The NPD Group has released the August video game sales figures in the US and while much of the list won't be a big surprise to a lot of video game players, one of the games listed in the top 10 will be.
Coming in as the eighth highest selling game for August 2018 is the 2009 shooter, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. What certainly helped the game is that Microsoft added it to its Xbox One backward compatibility service on August 28, a move which fans have been requesting for quite a while. The digital sales combined with the Xbox 360 retail copies sold helped push this title back into the top 10 for the first time in quite a while. In comparison, the game landed at the 321 best selling spot just a month prior in July 2018.
The rest of the list pretty much falls in line with a trend that has been in place since 2000. Madden NFL 19 took the top spot and while specific sales figures weren't released, the NPD Group did report that the annual football game was the highest since Madden NFL 13. What's more impressive about this feat is that the title is still number one for the month without any digital sales data included. Finally, Monster Hunter World, Rainbow Six Siege, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe round out the top 5 for August 2018.
The industry as a whole is trending upward as August also saw a 26% increase year over year. Software spending also rose 19% at $330 million while hardware spending rose 28% overall. Here are the top 10 games sold for August 2018:
- Madden NFL 19
- Monster Hunter: World
- Rainbow Six Siege
- GTA V
- Mario Kart 8
- Naruto To Boruto: Shinobi Striker
- God of War
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- Super Mario Odyssey
For Grand Theft Auto 5, a game that originally launched back in 2013, it has knocked off a few more achievements in its historic lifespan. The game has now become the highest-selling game in the history of NPD tracking and has been listed in these charts for 59 out of its 60 months on the market. Already in 2018, Grand Theft Auto 5 has become the fifth best-selling game and with Red Dead Redemption 2 about a month away, Rockstar Games looks poised to repeat this process.