The numbers are in and gamers, and their wallets, have spoken. October sales for video games, although signigicantly lower this time of the year than previous records, reveal familiar names and some newcomers across all platforms.
October is a crucial month for game publishers as the industry prepares for the holiday shopping season. Overall, it looks like gamers spent most of their cash on new consoles rather than games, making sales of physical games this month lower than October of last year.
Liam Callahan of the industry-intelligence firm, The NPD Group, said that older consoles and the fast-growing industry is also to account for the drop in sales.
"Overall sales across hardware, new physical software, and accessories were essentially flat in October 2014 compared to October 2013. Hardware and accessory growth, at 59 percent and 22 percent, respectively, was enough to offset the decline in new physical software of 28 percent," he said.
Titles that made it to the top ten physical games sold are:
NBA 2K15 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3, PC)
Super Smash Bros. for 3DS (3DS)
The Evil Within (PS4, Xbox One, PS3, 360, PC)
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (360, PS3, PC)
Destiny (360, Xbox One, PS4, PS3)
Skylanders: Trap Team (360, Wii, Wii U, PS3, Xbox One, PS4, 3DS, mobile)
FIFA 15 (PS4, 360, PS3, Xbox One, Wii, PS Vita, 3DS)
Madden NFL 15 (360, PS4, PS3, Xbox One)
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (PS4, XBox One, PC)
Minecraft (360, PS3, PS4)
Notably absent from the list is Microsoft's Sunset Overdrive, which was sold exclusively for Xbox One for only four days in October.
According to reports, there was a 27 percent drop in software sales for games this year. The NPD Group revealed that revenue in sales totaled to $790.7 million.
The industry is optimistic that the numbers will improve in November as many highly-anticipated new installments to big name franchises are set to launch that month.
