The NPD Group has released its latest monthly report for the US video game industry, revealing which games and consoles sold the best during May 2021. The report also covers how well the industry overall performed during the month.

Here are the big takeaways, including Resident Evil Village leading the pack.

Overall

Total spending on games in the US during May 2021–spanning hardware, games, and accessories–rose by 3% to $4.5 billion. Year-to-date, meanwhile, spending rose by 17% to $24 billion. These are both year-over-year comparisons.

Hardware

For game consoles, total spending on hardware rose by 5% year-over-year to $244 million for May 2021. Spending on hardware year-to-date performed even better, jumping by 36% to $1.9 billion so far in 2021.

The Nintendo Switch was once again the top-selling home console in the US during May 2021, outperforming the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S systems (which remain difficult to find in many places).

The Switch was the top-performer both in terms of total units sold and dollars spent for both May 2021 and year-to-date.

Games

Shifting to games, total spending on software for May 2021 rose to $4.06 billion, which was up 3% year-over-year. Year-to-date, spending on games surged by 15% to $21 billion.

Resident Evil Village was the month’s best-seller overall, and it quickly became the second best-selling game of 2021 so far. Capcom is discussing Resident Evil during an E3 showcase today.

MLB The Show 21, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, New Pokemon Snap, and Mortal Kombat 11 rounded out the top five for May 2021.

May 2021 Top-Selling Games All Platforms

• Resident Evil Village
• MLB The Show 21^
• Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
• New Pokemon Snap*
• Mortal Kombat 11
• Mario Kart 8*
• Returnal
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons*
• Minecraft
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
• Spider-Man: Miles Morales
• Super Mario 3D World*
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
• It Takes Two
• Biomutant*
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
• Monster Hunter: Rise
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*
• Pokemon: Sword/Shield*
• Days Gone

*Digital sales not included

^ Xbox digital sales not included

Accessories

The accessories category was the only segment to drop year-over-year, with total spending falling by 8% to $142 million for May 2021. Year-to-date spending has now reached $1 billion, which is up 17% year-over-year. Steering wheel accessories are doing especially well, rising by more than 45% in terms of revenue year-over-year. The Logitech G920 Driving Force racing wheel is 2021’s best-selling steering wheel so far.

Kompletter Artikel: Best-Selling Games And Systems Of May 2021 (US): Resident Evil Village Leads The Pack

After nearly 20 years, Call of Duty has evolved from a humble WWII game into an unstoppable force of the first-person shooter genre. Let’s look back at the series with Richie as he recalls his experiences playing the entire series in 2021.

Kompletter Artikel: I Played Every Call of Duty in 2021 (Part 1)

Two prominent Call of Duty developers from Infinity Ward have left the studio to pursue what they are calling a “rare and exciting new opportunity.”

Narrative director Taylor Kurosaki and design director Jacob Minkoff left Infinity Ward earlier this year, though the news is only just becoming public now. “It was an honor to be a part of the studio for the last 7 years and we’re so proud of what we created together with Modern Warfare and Infinite Warfare. We wish the team nothing but the best,” they said in a joint statement.

The statement goes on to explain that Kurosaki and Minkoff are not yet able to announce their next gig, but they remarked that more details should come soon. The joint statement was attributed to both Kurosaki and Minkoff, so they are presumably sticking together for whatever they are working on next.

Before joining Infinity Ward, Minkoff spent years at Naughty Dog where he worked on Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, including its acclaimed train level. He was promoted to lead designer for Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception and The Last of Us.

As for Kurosaki, he also came to Infinity Ward from Naughty Dog. He worked at the Sony studio for more than 10 years as a narrative design lead across a number of projects.

Given their experience, it will be interesting to see where Kurosaki and Minkoff land next. The statement says only that they are leaving Infinity Ward and not Activision overall, though that could be a possibility as well. We’ll report back with more information as it’s announced.

2021’s new Call of Duty game is coming from Sledgehammer Games, the developer of Call of Duty: WWII. The new game, which is due out this holiday, is rumored to be another WWII game that may be called Vanguard. This game is expected to integrate with Call of Duty: Warzone in some capacity that hasn’t been clarified yet.

Kompletter Artikel: Call Of Duty Veterans Who Worked On Modern Warfare And Infinite Warfare Leave Infinity Ward

The NPD Group has released its latest monthly sales report, detailing the best-selling games and hardware for April 2021 in the US, as well as providing a snapshot of the overall health of the North American games industry.

Total spending on games in the US–across hardware, content, and accessories–declined 2% to $4.6 billion in April, though spending year-to-date in 2021 jumped by 21% to $19.6 billion.

The Nintendo Switch was the top-selling home console in the US during April 2021, both for units and dollar sales. Total spending on hardware, however, fell 30% to $296 million compared to April 2020. Year-to-date sales for hardware is up 42% to $1.7 billion.

Moving to game sales, Sony’s MLB The Show 21 was the best-selling game of April 2021 and is now the third best-selling game overall in 2021 so far. The game had a particularly strong showing, setting a new record for highest first-month dollar sales in franchise history. That makes sense given the game launched on Xbox this year for the first time ever.

MLB The Show 21 was the top-selling game on PlayStation during April, while it ranked second on Xbox–though digital sales on Xbox are not counted by NPD. MLB The Show 21 launched on Xbox into the Game Pass library, and its strong sales seem to tally with the claim from Microsoft that Game Pass may not materially harm outright game sales.

Another notable new release in April was New Pokemon Snap, which was the top-seller on Switch during April and the third best-selling game overall of the month. Its first-month physical sales were more than double what the original Pokemon Snap achieved in July 1999.

You can see the full list of the 20 best-selling games in the US for April 2021 below.

In terms of accessories, the PS5 DualSense controller was the number one overall best-seller in terms of dollar sales for April 2021 and 2021 overall so far. Total spending on accessories, however, fell 23% year-over-year to $168 million. Year-to-date spending on accessories rose by 22% to $885 million.

The year-over-year declines for hardware, games, and accessories may be attributable to the fact that April 2020 was so strong due to the COVID-19 lockdowns that kept people at home and playing games. The massive results were always going to be difficult to compare against.

Top 20 Best-Selling Games In The US For April 2021 All Platforms

1. MLB The Show 21^
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
3. New Pokemon Snap*
4. Outriders
5. Nier Replicant
6. Mortal Kombat 11
7. Monster Hunter Rise
8. Returnal
9. It Takes Two
10. Mario Kart 8*
11. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
12. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
13. Super Mario 3D World*
14. Minecraft
15. Animal Crossing: New Horizons*
16. Super Mario 3D All Stars*
17. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
18. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
19. Pokemon Sword/Shield*
20. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*

*Digital sales not included

^ Xbox digital sales not included

Kompletter Artikel: Top 20 Best-Selling Games Of April 2021 Revealed, As Switch Outsells Everyone Again (US)

Activision has provided a status report on toxic behavior, hate speech, and harassment in the various Call of Duty games, including Warzone, Black Ops Cold War, Modern Warfare, and CoD: Mobile. In a blog post, Activision said first and foremost that it will not tolerate this kind of behavior in its games, while it also takes a stand against it in society.

“We are focused on making positive steps forward, and together celebrating the best fans in the world,” Activision said. “We know addressing toxicity is not simple and requires sustained effort.”

“We know addressing toxicity is not simple and requires sustained effort.” — Activision

Over the past 12 months, Activision has banned more than 350,000 accounts over racist names or toxic behavior in Warzone, Black Ops Cold War, Modern Warfare, and Mobile. These bans came as a result of both player-submitted reports and Activision’s own tools.

Also over the past year, Activision released new in-game filters that automatically detect racist and offensive names, while new technology was also added to the games to get rid of offensive text chat. These filters are now applied across 11 languages, Activision said.

This is just the beginning of what Activision hopes to achieve to clean up the Call of Duty community, the publisher said. Looking forward, Activision said it will increase the capabilities of its player-reporting tools and moderation systems, while the company will also do more with voice chat to combat toxic behavior.

“Our goal is to give players the tools needed to manage their own gameplay experience, combined with an enforcement approach that addresses hate speech, racism, sexism, and harassment,” Activision said.

Here are some of the ways that Activision will take aim at weeding out even more bad actors from the Call of Duty community:

• More resources to support detection and enforcement
• Additional monitoring and backend technology
• Scrubbing databases to bring systems up to current standards
• Consistent and fair review of enforcement policies
• Increased communication with the community

“We know we have a long way to go to reach our goals. This is just the start. Addressing this is an ongoing commitment that we will not waiver from. We look forward to making progress on this front and coming together with you to share in the fun and joy of playing together,” Activision said.

In addition to addressing toxic behavior, Activision continues to take a hard line against cheaters. So far, Activision has banned more than 500,000 accounts from Warzone alone for cheating.

Kompletter Artikel: How Activision Is Battling Racism And Toxicity In Call Of Duty

Jährliche Updates bestimmter Spieleserien sind bereits seit Ewigkeiten gang und gäbe. Titel wie FIFA oder Call of Duty zählen dabei zu den bekanntesten Beispielen. Noch dazu müssen diese Games auf der einen Seite möglichst einsteigerfreundlich, auf der…

Kompletter Artikel: FIFA, Call of Duty und Co.: Wo bleibt die Risikobereitschaft der Entwickler?

Surprising probably no one, the NPD Group’s latest data shows that Epic’s battle royale game Fortnite had the most unique active users in March in the US across PlayStation and Xbox. As you can see in the chart below, shared by the NPD’s Mat Piscatella, Fortnite was number one for both PlayStation and Xbox.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare ranked second on both platforms, while Grand Theft Auto V, Minecraft, and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War rounded out the top five for each platform, but not all in the same order.

One game that is noticeably absent is Call of Duty: Warzone, which is immensely popular with 100 million players and counting. Piscatella said in a follow-up tweet that Warzone’s player numbers are accounted for based on where it’s launched from. Because Warzone can be launched directly from Black Ops Cold War and Modern Warfare, its numbers are baked into those games.

It will be interesting to see if any battle royale game can catch up to Fortnite when it comes to active users. Warzone should post big numbers for April given its massive Season 3 update that included a new Verdansk ’84 map for the battle royale game as part of the game’s latest special event.

For more on Verdansk ’84, check out the Season 3 patch notes.

Kompletter Artikel: Fortnite Had More Players Than Any Other Game On PlayStation Or Xbox In March

After over a month of waiting, the Warzone’s zombies have finally taken over. Join Richie as he plays through the event to find out the fate of Verdansk.

Kompletter Artikel: COD Warzone Nuke Event: The End of Verdansk

Players are still being surprised with new content in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Today, the new Sykov pistol was silently slipped into the game.

The new Sykov Pistol should be locked but viewable under the pistols section of your create-a-class. If you want to unlock the new Sykov Pistol for use in both Modern Warfare and Warzone, you simply need to complete a pistol challenge.

You must get four pistol kills in five different matches, so just choose your favorite unlocked pistol and hop into a match. You can choose to take the easy route, backing out of the match after you earn those four kills. Then it’s just rinse and repeat. You’ll still have your progress count, but if you’re like me, you might feel like a bad teammate for abandoning each match.

Once unlocked and leveled up, the Sykov has the potential to be a really powerful contender in both Modern Warfare and Warzone. The Sykov can be beefed up with an 80-round drum, and even be full-automatic with the option to also akimbo dual wield. This new gun could potentially shake up the current Warzone meta.

Developers Raven Software has tweeted that an issue was resolved in Warzone that was causing the Sykov pistol challenge to show but not track the player’s progression. Players should now be able to unlock the weapon as intended.

This new gun comes shortly after three maps were quietly introduced into Modern Warfare, but last week the developers announced the removal of two of the maps. Currently, the third added map, Killhouse, is still available to play.

This was a nice surprise for Modern Warfare fans, as Activision’s current focus remains on Black Ops: Cold War and Warzone. Call of Duty’s Season 2 is set to wrap up for Black Ops: Cold War and Warzone on April 21. A new teaser trailer was released today for the upcoming Season 3, and things are heating up in Verdansk.

Kompletter Artikel: New Sykov Pistol Quietly Added To Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare

Infinity Ward hat ein Statement zu den Maps veröffentlicht, die erst in CoD: Modern Warfare eingefügt und dann wenig später entfernt wurden. Spieler dürfen sich auf eine Rückkehr der Karten freuen.

Kompletter Artikel: Modern Warfare: Entwickler melden sich zur Map-Kontroverse