14 DAY TRIAL // The NPD Group has released its slimmed down sales figures for the month of October on the United States market and in a surprising development the basketball simulation NBA 2K11 from publisher Take Two has managed to emerge as the best seller in video game sales, beating out the analyst favorite Medal of Honor and the post apocalyptic hybrid Fallout: New Vegas.
The NPD Group says that when compared to the same period of last year, when the recession was hitting the video game industry pretty hard, the industry has sold four percent less in terms of overall value, with sales of new, boxed video games managing to show an increase, with the sales value reaching 605 million dollars.
NBA 2K11 has benefited from the fact that its main rival, the renamed NBA Elite 11 from Electronic Arts, has initially been delayed and has then been canceled outright, with the publisher citing quality issues.
It has been a good month of sports games in general, with FIFA Soccer 11 from EA Sports managing to take the eight pace in the chart and with Madden NFL 11 taking position behind it.
Second place in the chart went to Fallout: New Vegas, which was developed by Obsidian and published by Bethesda, a complex title that takes the gamer to the Mojave Wasteland and offers arguably more freedom than the previous game in the series.
Medal of Honor, the Afghanistan first person shooter from Danger Close, DICE and Electronic Arts, has only taken the third place in the chart, despite being predicted to come out on top by most analysts before the NPD Group release.
The remainder of the chart is made up of:
4. Fable III 5. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II 6. Halo: Reach 7. Just Dance 2 8. FIFA Soccer 11 9. Madden NFL 11 10. WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011
Anita Frazier, who comments on the data on behalf of the NPD Group, has remarked, “Interestingly, unit sales of online playable console games were up 16 percent while sales of those that are not online playable were down 2 percent versus last October.”