Diablo 3 Was The Top Selling Game In May, Hardware Sales Down 39 Percent

Posted June 14, 2012 - By Leah Jackson

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The May NPD results are in and have confirmed that PC gaming isn't dead, as they've named Diablo 3 the top selling game of the month. This is the first time since July 2010, when StarCraft 2 came out, that a PC-only game has been on top.

“PC Games sales realized a year over year increase of 230% realizing $80MM in sales, which softened the decline in software sales overall," said NPD analyst, Anita Frazier.

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Other top games for the month include Max Payne 3, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Prototype 2, NBA 2K12, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Sniper Elite V2, Battlefield 3, Dragon's Dogma, and Just Dance 3.

“To dig deeper into the new physical retail software performance this month, new launches generated 31% more dollars this May than they did last May, largely due to the success of Diablo 3," said Frazier. "This May, new SKU launches across console, portable and pc game software generated 188% more unit sales per SKU than they did last May. So while there were fewer new item introductions this May, they collectively generated more unit and dollar sales.”

Unfortunately, even though software sales were up, hardware sales were way down for every console except for the Nintendo 3DS. The 3DS' sales spiked by 17% in May, but the Xbox 360 still managed to sell more devices than any other console, at 160,000 units (which is a pretty low amount). Overall, hardware sales are down 39% percent year-over-year, at $138.9 MM compared to $228.8 MM in 2011.