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1451030cookie-checkNintendo Switch And NES Classic Outsell PS4, Xbox One; Horizon Falls Drastically
Industry News
2017/05

Nintendo Switch And NES Classic Outsell PS4, Xbox One; Horizon Falls Drastically

Nintendo basically dominated the NPD charts for April, 2017. The new report from Venture Beat has Nintendo cleaning up the top two spots for hardware sales, and dominated the top 10 software sales charts as well.

According to the reports, the Nintendo Switch moved more than 280,000 SKUs in North America throughout April, while Nintendo desperately tried to battle stock shortages. A lot of retailers went the overpricing route, creating unofficial bundle packs to sell the Switch at over $500, a common tactic by GameSpot and Walmart. Even still, people actually overpaid for the bundles, which were marked up by anywhere between $60 to $100, and they continue to sell out to this day.

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The Switch’s and NES Classic Edition surge in sales drove April to a 37% revenue increase in hardware sales compared to 2016.

That’s right, the second best-selling console of April was the NES Classic Edition. Both of Nintendo’s products outsold the Xbox One and PS4 during the month of April. This was also the last month that Nintendo would be producing hardware of the NES Classic Edition in North America. Production halted in other regions as well, but Nintendo reported that they would resume production of the Famicom Classic Edition in Japan at some undisclosed point in the future.

Software was also another big factor for Nintendo to dominate. They took two of the top three spots in the top 10 best-selling games of April.

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Unsurprisingly enough, the feminist-themed Horizon: Zero Dawn fell way down the charts after it got off to a strong start at the end of February. The title fell all the way down to 12th place in the top 20 software sales for April. This is significant because it only had a day’s worth of recorded sales for the March NPD, and had all of March to dominate for the April NPD. As Venture Beat reported last month, Horizon: Zero Dawn only managed fourth place in the March stats.

Meanwhile, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has maintained it’s top 10 run since launching in March, showing that it certainly has strong sales legs to stand on. It was only outdone on the charts by the critically and commercial success from Atlus, Persona 5.

The charts for the top three games show that people definitely value quality over quantity. The same can’t be said for Ghost Recon: Wildlands, though.

Mass Effect: Andromeda, meanwhile, managed seventh place on the top 10, which is not good at all for a flagship AAA series from BioWare. This is only the second recorded month of sales for Mass Effec: Andromeda and it’s already down from when it launched in third place for the March NPD stats, showing that not only did it fail to outsell The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild during its launch month, but it also failed to gain any significant momentum in the follow-up month. Keep in mind that Mass Effect: Andromeda launched for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

The NPD stats are looking mighty interesting these days, as we see games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 from five years ago topping out the top 10 on the NPD (due to being made backwards compatible for the Xbox One), and we see that GTA V from four years ago is still within the top six best-selling games of the month. 2015’s Rainbow Six: Siege also managed to make the top 20, showing that a lot of games from 2016 and 2017 seem to have a hard time staying relevant on the list.

On the upside Nier: Automata, a dark horse in the sales race, actually managed to maintain its presence on the list since launching at the start of March.

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