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U.S. Software sales during the month of May dropped 44% compared to May 2012, the NPG Group reported today. Meanwhile, hardware sales dropped 31%, while total industry sales at retail dropped 25%.
“Overall entertainment software declines, down forty-four percent, were driven partly by sharp year-over-year declines within PC games due to poor comparisons to last year’s Diablo 3 release,” said NPD analyst Liam Callahan.
“Softness in new physical entertainment software sales stemmed from a decline in the number of new launches, with over 30% fewer new SKUs, as well as poor performance of the new SKUs that were released. New SKUs generated over seventy percent less units on a per-SKU basis, and a decrease of over eighty percent revenue per SKU.”
“Overall new launch performance in May’13 was poor, down 84% in units, decreasing 88% in dollars, which was driven by PCs and Consoles as new launches for portables were up 5% in units, and down only 7% in dollars.”
The top-10 best-selling games for the month of April (at retail) were as follows:
| Rank | Title | System | Publisher |
| 01. | Injustice: Gods Among Us | 360, PS3, Wii U | Warner Bros. |
| 02. | Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 | 360, PS3, PC, Wii U | Activision Blizzard |
| 03. | Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D | 3DS | Nintendo |
| 04. | Dead Island: Riptide | 360, PS3, PC | Deep Silver |
| 05. | Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon | 3DS | Nintendo |
| 06. | Metro: Last Light | 360, PS3, PC | Deep Silver |
| 07. | NBA 2K13 | 360, PS3, Wii, Wii U, PSP, PC | Take 2 |
| 08. | Bioshock Infinite | 360, PS3, PC | Take 2 |
| 09. | Battlefield 3 | 360, PS3, PC | Electronic Arts |
| 10. | LEGO Batman 2 | 360, Wii, DS, PS3, 3DS, Wii U, PSV, PC | Warner Bros. |
Reporting period: May 5th – June 1st, 2013.
