Red Dead, Smash Excel in USA’s 2018 Sales

January 24, 2019January 24, 2019 LoadingXP smash bros ultimate

Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 has triumphed as the best-selling video game in the United States in 2018, according to the December 2018 NDP report. Despite this impressive achievement, Red Dead Redemption 2 had to settle for second place in the month of December where Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate came out on top.

US sales across the board in 2018 revealed some positive signs for software consumption. Perhaps most meaningfully was the 7% increase of software sales across consoles, handhelds and PC from 2017. This brought the total dollar sales of software in 2018 to $7.1 billion which NDP noted was the highest total since 2012, which saw $7.5 billion.

The year end list also shows some interesting trends over the past twelve months. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, which topped PS4’s digital sales last year, was the runner-up in NDP’s chart. Interestingly, NDP analyst, Mat Piscatella, took to twitter about Activision’s first-person shooter saying:

“The race to the best-seller Software was very close. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 digital sales on PC are not currently tracked by The NDP Group and made all the difference in the rankings.”

Not surprisingly, sports games such as NBA 2K19 and Madden NFL 19 performed exceptionally well in America. Meanwhile, first party offerings Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Marvel’s Spider-Man and God of War all cracked the top ten. And of course, it wouldn’t be a list of best-selling games without Grand Theft Auto V making an appearance sitting comfortably at number 11. Indeed, five of the top twenty best-selling games did not release in 2018.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate continued a strong history of Nintendo Switch first party titles, a thought echoed by Piscatella who said about the game, “Exceeded every expectation I had, best-selling exclusive launch month in history”.

Here are the top twenty best-selling games in the US for 2018 across all platforms, according to NDP (no official sales numbers were offered, only the rankings):