Fable II Tops October Sales Charts
Fallout 3, Wii Fit, Mario Kart, Wii Play Make Up Top 5
Nov 15, 2008
The NPD Group has released its list of the top 20 best-selling videogames for the month of October, and Fable II has claimed the top spot. The open-world role playing game for the Xbox 360 sold nearly 800,000 units and managed to beat out other big releases like Fallout 3, Wii Music and Guitar Hero World Tour.
Released on October 21, Fable II was developed by videogame veteran Peter Molyneaux and Lionhead Studios in the UK and has garnered near universal critical acclaim. Another massive open world role-playing game, Bethesda's Fallout 3, placed at number three on the charts, selling 375,000 units. The rest of the top five was rounded out with three of Nintendo's best-selling Wii games: Wii Fit, Mario Kart, and Wii Play at numbers two, four and five, respectively.
Also making the top 10 were Sony's heavily marketed creation-fest, LittleBigPlanet, which sold 215,000 units, and Electronic Arts' breakout hit, Dead Space, which sold 193,000 units.
Guitar Hero World Tour Sales Not Enough
Activision Blizzard's highly anticipated Guitar Hero World Tour failed to crack the top 10, with the Xbox 360 version of the game coming in at number 11. The PS3 version of the game was outsold by it's main competitor, Rock Band 2.
Another surprise was the disappointing placement of Ubisoft's Far Cry 2, the sequel to a game that had garnered much critical acclaim and popularity for the French Publisher.
Wii Music Nowhere to Be Found
Perhaps the biggest surprise was the complete absence of Nintendo's Wii Music from the chart. The game, which had received a substantial marketing effort from Nintendo, failed to make the chart at all. According to NPD's data, the title sold just 81,000 units, which is a far cry from the nearly 700,000 units Wii Fit managed to move in its first month.
Videogame Sales Up Despite Econimic Woes
Overall sales for the industry, including both hardware and software, totaled more than $1 billion, which is an 18 percent year over year growth. Console sales saw a significant bump, thanks to recent price cuts, though portable console sales stalled.
NPD Analyst, Anita Frazier, said, "The console portion of the market made significant gains at 26 percent across hardware, software and accessories, while the portable side of the market stalled, declining 14 percent. Year-to-date the portable segment of the market is still up 7 percent."
The numbers landed at the top-end of what many financial analysts were expecting and saw an industry rebound after the negative growth in September.
Looking ahead, November is shaping up to be a big month as well, with a number of high profile releases, including Gears of War 2 and Call of Duty World at War.
