14 DAY TRIAL // L.A. Noire, the crime-oriented video game from Team Bondi and Rockstar, has been the best selling title of the month of May in the United States, according to figures offered by the NPD Group, which tracks both hardware and software sales month by month.
Overall, the month of May was a very tough one for the industry, with overall sales coming down year over year by 14 percent to reach just 743.1 million dollars, one of the lowest monthly totals in years.
The slice of the piece linked to video game sales was 375.8 million, 19% smaller than last year.
L.A. Noire managed to sell 889,000 copies on the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 to top the chart for the month.
Anita Frazier, who is an analyst with the NPD Group, stated, “This month's story really is about a light new release schedule as compared to last year. There were 42 new SKU's introduced in May as compared to 58 last May, and 72 in 2009. This is reflected in the share of dollars contributed by May releases, which was 28% in 2011 as compared to 41 percent last year.”
Last year sales were dominated by Red Dead Redemption, also from Rockstar, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 from Nintendo, two high-profile video games that managed to sell well and push the industry forward during the summer of 2010.
Brink, the multiplayer-oriented shooter from Bethesda and Splash Damage, took the second place in the chart, with LEGO Pirates of the Carribbean: The Video Game from Disney and TT Games taking third place.
The rest of the chart is made up of Portal 2 from Valve and Electronic Arts, Mortal Kombat 2011 from Warner Bros. Interactive, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Zumba Fitness: Join the Party, NBA 2K11, Just Dance 2 and Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars.