The National Purchase Diary, or NPD, tracks retail and some digital sales for a variety of products, including video games. July saw releases for a lot of smaller titles, but it appears to be a success story for a popular Switch exclusive and Nintendo in general.
For June, Mario Tennis Aces came out as the best selling game of the month, but the momentum for the Switch keeps rolling to July. Octopath Traveler tops the U.S. charts this month for all platforms, meaning that the game sold the best at retail. As the title is published by Nintendo in the U.S. and Nintendo doesn’t report eShop sales to the NPD, Octopath outsold every other game without taking digital into account. Considering the scope and budget of the game, the Square Enix-developed JRPG is probably one of their bigger successes. You can check out our Octopath Traveler review right here.
Octopath Traveler also pushes Nintendo over the line to being the best selling software publisher this year, according to the NPD Group. The Kyoto giant has five of the top ten slots in the NPD in July with games like Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8, and Mario Tennis Aces.
| Octopath Traveler* | 1 | |
| Grand Theft Auto V | 2 | |
| Mario Kart 8* | 3 | |
| Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy | 4 | |
| The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild* | 5 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 6 | |
| Super Mario Odyssey* | 7 | |
| The Crew 2 | 8 | |
| Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege | 9 | |
| Mario Tennis Aces* | 10 | |
| FIFA 18 | 11 | |
| LEGO Incredibles | 12 | |
| God of War 2018 | 13 | |
| Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker* | 14 | |
| NBA 2K18 | 15 | |
| Call of Duty: WWII | 16 | |
| Detroit: Become Human | 17 | |
| MLB 18: The Show | 18 | |
| Minecraft | 19 | |
| Destiny 2 | 20 |
(Titles marked with * do not count digital sales.)
Following behind Octopath is the juggernaut Grand Theft Auto V, which remains near the top of every NPD monthly sales chart consistently. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker debuted fairly low, though without absolute numbers and eShop sales it is hard to tell how well it did. Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy debuted strong, debuting second on the Xbox One-specific chart and seven on the Switch’s chart.
In terms of hardware, the Switch was the best selling platform both in terms of units sold and revenue. This is the seventh month that the Switch has come out on top in the NPD since its release in March 2017. The PlayStation 4 remains the overall best selling system of 2018 to date.
The August NPD will include releases like WarioWare Gold, We Happy Few, Phantom Doctrine, and Yakuza Kiwami 2.
Source: Game Informer Octopath Travels To The Top Of U.S. Sales Charts In July