In June, the Xbox Series finished ahead of the PlayStation 5 in terms of money made.

When we talked about the NPD Group’s June report for North America, we outright said we shouldn’t jump to conclusions and see what happens in July to see if Microsoft is bringing good competition to Sony. Now that the July report is here, we can say a few things about what happened last month.

The Nintendo Switch continued to sell the most units, but it doesn’t have shortages (instead, it will receive a slightly bigger but not stronger OLED model in October). The same cannot be said about the Xbox Series and the PlayStation 5, the latter of which regained the lead in terms of dollar sales. So we see the familiar faces at the top of the charts, but the November 2020-launched consoles’ hands are still tied.

The DualSense is the best-selling accessory of the year, but July was won by The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD Edition Joy-Cons. The consumption (software, hardware, accessories) grew 10% year on year. Still, despite the coronavirus global pandemic, the impact of the new consoles’ arrival led to a boost of interest, which in turn boosted the gaming industry in North America.

Here are the top twenty games of July:

1.         The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD
2.         Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
3.         Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin
4.         Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
5.         Minecraft
6.         Mario Golf: Super Rush
7.         MLB: The Show 21
8.         Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
9.         Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
10. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
11. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
12. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
13. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2
14. Super Mario 3D World
15. Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate
16. Neo: The World Ends With You
17. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
18. Pokémon Sword/Shield
19. Resident Evil: Village
20. Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla

So the new Zelda game that first launched on the Nintendo Wii took the top step of the podium, followed by the current Call of Duty title, and another Nintendo Switch game claimed the third step on the roster. (However, this Monster Hunter spin-off RPG is also available on PC.) The Switch thus took two places on the podium, and its dominance is also present in the top ten (six games!).

Sony can only show a single exclusive game on the list (MLB: The Show 21 is NOT considered as such anymore, even though SIE San Diego developed it; it’s a multiplatform game, which overtook Resident Evil: Village to be the second best-seller of 2021 so far), and we see the familiar faces in the list (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Minecraft are always up there).

We predict the PlayStation 5 and Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut to take the lead in August…

Source: PSL