NBA 2K17 is September's Best-Selling Game
By Kyle Sledge 23 October 2016
A spate of sports games dominate the NPD Group’s September game sales charts for 2016, with 2K Sports’ basketball title NBA 2K17 taking the number one spot.
As evidenced by recent findings from the market research firm, the NPD Group, 2016 sales for video game software, hardware, and accessories when compared to September of last year were down by 23 percent, but that doesn’t mean people stopped buying titles at all. While the recent NPD report projects this mixed look at the state of the industry’s sales in September 2016, it’s definitely notable that sports games have dominated the early portion of fall, with 2K Sports’ NBA 2K17 taking the top spot as last month’s best selling game.
Directly following NBA 2K17 on the NPD charts are Madden NFL 17, FIFA 17, and NHL 17. Although sports titles took the first four slots on the sales list, there is a slight bit of variety in the top five positions, as 2K Games’ recent release of the remastered versions of its critically acclaimed first-person shooter trilogy in BioShock: The Collection was number five.
Taking into consideration the fact that both NBA 2K17 and FIFA 17 incorporated a new story mode, it’s quite possible that the narrative-driven feature was appealing to fans, and caused them to be attracted to the titles. However, it’s important to note that NBA 2K16 was the top-selling game of September 2015, so there’s even the potential for an early fall trend to be occurring when it comes to the popularity sports titles. Whatever the case may be, those interested can find the full list of the best-selling physical sales of video game software for September 2016 below.
1. NBA 2K17
2. Madden NFL 17
3. FIFA 17
4. NHL 17
5. Bioshock: The Collection
6. Destiny: The Collection
7. Grand Theft Auto 5
8. Overwatch
9. Forza Horizon 3
10. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
Of course, one could argue that September 2016 didn’t necessarily offer a large amount of highly-anticipated blockbusters, which more than likely helped facilitate the rise of sports games to the top of the charts. It’s safe to say that when some of the most anticipated video games for holiday 2016 arrive, the software rankings ought to become a lot more diverse and wide-ranging as far as genres go.
With Battlefield 1 just recently releasing, we should see DICE and Electronic Arts’ World War I shooter make its way into next month’s top 10, but it will face stiff competition in sales when November rolls around. After all, almost right after Halloween, Activision and Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare drops, and if the sales of past titles are any indication of the next entry in the series’ success, then we ought to see the futuristic FPS dominate in its release month, if not for the rest of the year.
NBA 2K17 is available now for PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
Source: Game Informer
