Jedi: Survivor and Dead Island 2 top sales charts April | approx

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Dead Island 2 are sailing to the top of the bestseller list in a month filled with hot new releases, according to industry tracking company Circana (formerly known as The NPD Group and IRI). According to the latest report, seven newly released games (or bundles, in the case of two of the titles) made the top 20. However, the number of actual sales fell slightly. The PlayStation 5 continues to sell well, although the Switch led the market in units sold.

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

The slight decline in dollar sales, despite the number of new releases, could be due to last year’s Elden Ring and LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga being sales juggernauts. It took a while for the first to be dethroned from the top spot on the list. Another factor is that some buyers have been waiting for May’s major release: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It will be interesting to see how next month’s chart shakes out.

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

April saw the release of several chart-topping titles, including PGA Tour, Minecraft Legends, and the justifiably delayed but finally released Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp. Two of the new games that made the bestseller list were bundled re-releases, Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection and Final Fantasy I-VI Bundle.

Two other games that returned to the list with slightly lower numbers are New Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario 3D World. You can probably assume that the reason they’re seeing slightly higher numbers is the release of the Super Mario Bros movie in April.

Jedi and zombies are the big tickets

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is the best game on the list, probably thanks to the well-known IP address and good word of mouth from the previous game, Fallen Order. It managed to make it to the top despite some negative chatter about the game’s poor PO performance. Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson said in a recent earnings call that Survivor is “very much against our expectations,” especially when compared to Fallen Order.

Perhaps even more surprising is that Dead Island 2 managed to get so high on the list. The lengthy development time had become memetic long before it was released, and it worked out relatively well. 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 might have expected.

April 2023 Cirana: 20 best-selling games of 2022 so far

Hogwarts Legacy and Resident Evil 4 remain the best-selling new games of the year, although Jedi: Survivor and Dead Island 2 debuting at positions 4 and 6 respectively on the list is a good start. They are the only two of the new games to make the bestseller list of the year so far. Everything else on the list is more or less unchanged, simply moved down a few places to make room for the newcomers. It probably comes as no surprise that Jedi: Survivor has a bit more to go before it catches up with Modern Warfare 2.