Watch Dogs: Legion Falls to FIFA/Madden in October, Switch Sets a New Sales Record

The NPD Group has released their full North American sales data for October 2020, and once again numbers were up year-on-year with players spending $3.8 billion on games, additional content, and hardware. That’s up 14 percent compared to October 2019. This was largely driven by big sales of the Nintendo Switch, which broke a new record for October hardware sales previously set by the Wii back in 2008. The Switch is starting to look like it has a real shot at being Nintendo’s most successful console ever.

On the software front, October was dominated by sports with FIFA 21 #1, Madden NFL 21 #2, and NHL 21 #4 (NHL 94 Rewind apparently proved an enticing prospect). Meanwhile, Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs: Legion came in at #3, although to be fair, it launched near the end of the month. We’ll see if Watch Dogs can stay near the top of the charts in November or if the series’ history of so-so sales continues. The only other new addition to the charts was Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit at #5, which could be seen as disappointing for a Mario Kart game, but is actually a decent result given the game’s high price and gimmicky concept.

Here are October’s top 20 games according to NPD:

1. FIFA 21
2. Madden NFL 21
3. Watch Dogs: Legion
4. NHL 21
5. Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit
6. Super Mario 3D All-Stars
7. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
8. Star Wars: Squadrons
9. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
10. Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
11. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
12. Ghost of Tsushima
13. NBA 2K21
14. Marvel's Avengers
15. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
16. Ring Fit Adventure
17. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
18. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 & 2
19. Super Mario Party
20. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe

And here are the top-10 best-selling games of 2020 so far:

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
3. Madden NFL 21
4. The Last of Us Part II
5. Ghost of Tsushima
6. Final Fantasy VII Remake
7. Marvel's Avengers
8. Super Mario 3D All-Stars
9. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
10. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

A solid month for Nintendo and traditional sports franchises. Of course, this is just the calm before the storm. It will be very interesting to see November’s charts given the launch of the new consoles!