We’ve seen lots of indications that video game sales are significantly up as players stay indoors and look for ways to fill time due to the coronavirus. The first NPD report covering a full month since widespread social distancing started has now come out, showing just how big the bump has been in US sales.

On the whole, April spending increased 73% over the same period last year, which marked a new record high for the month. In total it reached $1.5 billion, beating the former record holder, $1.2 billion in April 2008. The high sales also impacted the yearly figures with a 12% increase over 2019. Game sales increased 55% over April 2018.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake had a big debut month, already reaching the #3 spot in this year’s best-sellers. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare continued to sell very well after months on the market, and still held onto the second-place spot for the month. Animal Crossing: New Horizons held a high spot as well, and is the best-selling Switch game over the past year.

This matches up with global sales data already announced by Nintendo. It’s notable that NPD doesn’t include digital sales for Nintendo games like Animal Crossing and Mario Kart, and considering Nintendo says digital accounts for 50% of Animal Crossing sales, the actual figure could be much higher.

Hardware sales were setting records as well. NPD says hardware spending increased 163% over the same period last year, to $420 million. Year-to-date hardware spending saw a 30% increase to $1.2 billion. And year-to-date sales of Nintendo Switch are the highest of any hardware platform in US history, breaking the record set by the Nintendo Wii in April 2009.

In an investor note, analyst Michael Pachter appeared to give more details on exact hardware unit sales from NPD. He said that the Nintendo Switch led the month with 808,000 units, the PS4 sold 411,000, and Xbox One sold 329,000. Each of these figures was roughly double the previous analyst sales estimates due to stay-at-home consumers, and Pachter says that widespread sellouts mean they could have been even higher. These hardware sales are particularly striking for a non-holiday month, especially one coming at the end of a console generation.

Check below for the full listing of April software sales. New games are marked in bold.

April 2020 NPD Software Sales

1. Final Fantasy 7 Remake
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
4. NBA 2K20
5. Grand Theft Auto 5
6. Resident Evil 3
7. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: Remastered
8. MLB: The Show 20
9. Madden NFL 20
10. Red Dead Redemption 2
11. Just Dance 2020
12. FIFA 20
13. Mortal Kombat 11
14. Borderlands 3
15. Predator: Hunting Grounds
16. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
17. Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
18. Persona 5 Royal
19. Need for Speed Heat
20. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

NPD Top Software Sales 2020 Year-To-Date

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
3. Final Fantasy 7 Remake
4. NBA 2K20
5. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot
6. MLB: The Show 20
7. Grand Theft Auto 5
8. Resident Evil 3
9. Madden NFL 20
10. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Kompletter Artikel: April Was A Massive Month For The Games Industry In The US

Ein aktuelles Video zu Call of Duty: Modern Warfare & Warzone könnte eine baldige Rückkehr von Captain Price als Operator im Shooter andeuten. Mit dem Start von Season 4 von CoD Modern Warfare & Warzone soll er dann im Shooter zur Verfügung stehen. Eine…

Kompletter Artikel: Call of Duty Modern Warfare und Warzone: Kehrt in Season 4 Captain Price zurück?

Developer Infinity Ward has confirmed that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will get a large update introducing new content later this week on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. This includes the return of an old franchise map, which is available to play right now. Hardhat, which was last seen in 2011’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, has been added to Modern Warfare’s 24/7 multiplayer playlist. It is a close-quarters map made for fast-paced skirmishes, but with enough sightlines for long-range fire as well. This should make it particularly challenging and ensure that teams make use of multiple loadouts. Without doing so, they risk leaving themselves open to ambushes or sniper fire.

[Update: The new update is out now, introducing both this and the new Aisle 9 map to the game, alongside other changes to both it and Warzone. You can read about everything new in the full Call of Duty May 18 update patch notes. The recent patch has also made various balance changes, as well as introduced new elements to the battle royale Warzone–including finally opening the vaults.]

What is old is now new with the return of the Hardhat map.

Of course, Hardhat is not the only addition to Modern Warfare this week. The studio added a new Gunfight map to multiplayer, as well as the “Ghost Pack Contingency” bundle that includes two new weapon blueprints, and more.

Call of Duty: Warzone will also see some changes later this week. This includes implementing a new item to all Warzone game modes, adding more weapons to The Gulag, introducing a new limited-time mode, and more.

In other Call of Duty news, Infinity Ward reintroduced helicopters after temporarily removing them due to a glitch earlier this month. Elsewhere, it has been reported that the world record for the most kills in a single Warzone Quads match has been set, with one team getting 121 kills before the match concluded.

Kompletter Artikel: New Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare Patch Resurrects A Fan-Favorite Map

Developer Infinity Ward has confirmed that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will get a large update introducing new content later this week on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. This includes the return of an old franchise map, which is available to play right now. Hardhat, which was last seen in 2011’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, has been added to Modern Warfare’s 24/7 multiplayer playlist. It is a close-quarters map made for fast-paced skirmishes, but with enough sightlines for long-range fire as well. This should make it particularly challenging and ensure that teams make use of multiple loadouts. Without doing so, they risk leaving themselves open to ambushes or sniper fire.

[Update: The new update is out now, introducing both this and the new Aisle 9 map to the game, alongside other changes to both it and Warzone. You can read about everything new in the full Call of Duty May 18 update patch notes. The recent patch has also made various balance changes, as well as introduced new elements to the battle royale Warzone–including finally opening the vaults.]

What is old is now new with the return of the Hardhat map.

Of course, Hardhat is not the only addition to Modern Warfare this week. The studio added a new Gunfight map to multiplayer, as well as the “Ghost Pack Contingency” bundle that includes two new weapon blueprints, and more.

Call of Duty: Warzone will also see some changes later this week. This includes implementing a new item to all Warzone game modes, adding more weapons to The Gulag, introducing a new limited-time mode, and more.

In other Call of Duty news, Infinity Ward reintroduced helicopters after temporarily removing them due to a glitch earlier this month. Elsewhere, it has been reported that the world record for the most kills in a single Warzone Quads match has been set, with one team getting 121 kills before the match concluded.

Kompletter Artikel: New Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare Patch Brings Back Fan-Favorite Map

The bunkers are finally opening in Call of Duty: Warzone, and you can get inside with the latest update.

Kompletter Artikel: COD: Warzone Bunker Locations And How To Open Them

[Update: It appears online access is starting to resume. GameSpot was able to connect to Call of Duty’s servers again after a short wait.]

Original story follows:

Reports of a new Call of Duty: Black Ops game for 2020 are flying, but it appears speculating on social media is the only way you’ll get to enjoy Call of Duty online at the moment. Both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone are having server issues that are preventing people from playing.

Activision acknowledged issues on its official support Twitter on May 20, saying it’s investigating an issue but not providing an explanation or timetable for servers’ return. GameSpot attempted to connect to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s online servers as well as the Warzone mode within Modern Warfare and were given an error message. The campaign mode and local multiplayer aren’t affected by the outage.

The outage comes just as Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare received major content updates. This included a new “classic” battle royale mode for Warzone, as well as the map Hardhat’s addition in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The map was previously in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 back in 2011, and was a fan-favorite choice.

Call of Duty: Warzone appears to be changing in recent days, with previously-closed bunkers suddenly opening. It’s possible this could be part of a tease for the next Black Ops game, and it bears some resemblance to the mysterious changes Epic Games routinely throws into Fortnite to keep players on their toes.

Kompletter Artikel: Call Of Duty Servers Down For Modern Warfare And Warzone [Update]

Infinity Ward hat ein weiteres Update für Call of Duty: Modern Warfare und Warzone veröffentlicht. Mit dem aktuellen Playlist-Patch beheben die Entwickler hauptsächlich Fehler, die seit dem großen Update 1.21 am Dienstagmorgen aufgetreten waren. Die…

Kompletter Artikel: Modern Warfare und Warzone: Weiteres Update erhältlich – das steckt im neuen Patch

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is one of the most successful entries in the CoD franchise in years, due in part to the popularity of its free-to-play battle royale mode, Warzone. However, there’s one aspect of the package that’s had fans up in arms for months now, and that’s the ballooning size of the game and its updates. The most recent May 18 patch is no exception, weighing in at nearly 31 GB across Xbox One, PS4, and PC. We’ve got the patch notes here.

With massive updates like that, it’s no wonder that Modern Warfare is inching toward the 200 GB mark. Prior to the patch, the game required around 180 GB of hard drive space, with some fans complaining that they need around 100 GB free just to download a 30 GB patch. In the rollout of Season 2 back in February, when fans complained about the size of the accompanying patch–which was around 94 GB on PC and smaller on consoles–Infinity Ward said that future updates would be smaller.

Many fans are continuing to voice their concerns about the ever-expanding file-size of the game, with one noting that Modern Warfare currently sits at twice the size of even massive, hundred-hour-long triple-A games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. While the new patch does add a substantial amount of new content–including new maps, with the return of fan-favorite Hardhat–it’s unclear what exactly the developer is planning to do about the size, besides promising more space-saving measures in future updates.

Kompletter Artikel: CoD: Modern Warfare's Newest Update Is Huge (Again)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is one of the most successful entries in the CoD franchise in years, due in part to the popularity of its free-to-play battle royale mode, Warzone. However, there’s one aspect of the package that’s had fans up in arms for months now, and that’s the ballooning size of the game and its updates. The most recent May 18 patch is no exception, weighing in at nearly 31 GB across Xbox One, PS4, and PC. We’ve got the patch notes here.

With massive updates like that, it’s no wonder that Modern Warfare is inching toward the 200 GB mark. Prior to the patch, the game required around 180 GB of hard drive space, with some fans complaining that they need around 100 GB free just to download a 30 GB patch. In the rollout of Season 2 back in February, when fans complained about the size of the accompanying patch–which was around 94 GB on PC and smaller on consoles–Infinity Ward said that future updates would be smaller.

Many fans are continuing to voice their concerns about the ever-expanding file-size of the game, with one noting that Modern Warfare currently sits at twice the size of even massive, hundred-hour-long triple-A games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. While the new patch does add a substantial amount of new content–including new maps, with the return of fan-favorite Hardhat–it’s unclear what exactly the developer is planning to do about the size, besides promising more space-saving measures in future updates.

Kompletter Artikel: Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare's Latest Update File Size Is Massive Again