Jedi: Survivor and Dead Island 2 top the sales charts for April | circana

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Dead Island 2 sail to the top of the best-seller list in a month packed with popular new releases, according to industry tracking firm Circana (formerly known as The NPD Group and IRI). According to their latest report, seven newly released games (or packs, in the case of two of the titles) have made it to the top 20 list. That being said, the number of actual sales has dropped slightly. The PlayStation 5 continues to sell well, although the Switch led the market in number of units sold.

“Gaming content spending decreased 6% in April compared to a year ago, to $3.6 billion. All content spend segments were down year-on-year in April, except for non-mobile subscription content spend, which was up 2% compared to April 2022,” said Mat Piscatella, an analyst at Circana. “This is the highest gaming hardware spend in an April month since the $420 million reached in April 2020. Double-digit percentage growth in dollar sales for PS5 and Switch offset declines on other platforms.”

The slight decline in dollar sales despite the number of new releases could be because last year’s Elden Ring and LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga were sales giants. It took some time for the former to be dethroned from the top spot on the list. Another factor is that some buyers may have waited for May’s major release: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It will be interesting to see how next month’s chart evolves.

April 2023 Circana: Top 20 Best Selling Games of the Month in the US

April saw the release of several titles that hit the charts, including PGA Tour, Minecraft Legends, and Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, which was fairly delayed but finally released. Two of the new games to hit the best-seller list were bundled re-releases, the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection and the Final Fantasy I-VI Bundle.

Two other games that have returned to the list from slightly lower numbers are New Super Mario Bros and Super Mario 3D World. It can probably be assumed that the reason they are seeing slightly higher numbers is the April release of the Super Mario Bros.

Jedi and zombies are the big tickets

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is the best game on the list, probably thanks to its well-known IP and good word of mouth from the previous game, Fallen Order. He managed to come out on top despite some negative feedback about the game’s poor PO performance. Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson said on a recent earnings call that Survivor is “performing very strongly against our expectations,” especially in comparison to Fallen Order.

Perhaps a bit more surprising is that Dead Island 2 managed to make it this high on the list. Its lengthy development time had become memetic long before its release, and it turned out relatively well. However, the fact that it managed to join Jedi: Survivor in displacing Hogwarts Legacy and Resident Evil 4 on the list is perhaps more of an achievement than one expected.

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Hogwarts Legacy and Resident Evil 4 remain the best-selling new games of the year, though Jedi: Survivor and Dead Island 2 debuting at No. 4 and No. 6 respectively is a good start. They are the only two of the new games to make the year-to-date best-seller list. Everything else on the list is more or less unchanged, just moved down a few places to make room for newcomers. It probably comes as no surprise that Jedi: Survivor has a little further to go before it surpasses Modern Warfare 2.