The latest video game software and hardware charts are now in from the United States for the month of January 2021 via sales tracking team the NPD Group. The Nintendo Switch proved to be the best-selling hardware platform in units sold for the month of January and the PlayStation 5 was the best-selling hardware platform in dollars sold. Overall video game hardware sales were 144% higher than January 2020. On the software side of things Animal Crossing: New Horizons proved once again to be a sales beast as it regained strength and jumped into the top five for the first time since July 2020. Here’s the charts:
“Animal Crossing: New Horizons ranked as January’s fifth best-selling title. This is the first time it has ranked among the top 5 best-selling games of the month since ranking fifth in July 2020. Animal Crossing: New Horizons repeated as the month’s best-selling title on Nintendo Switch.”
Matt Piscatella, NPD Group
January 2021 NPD: The top 20 best-selling games of the month in the U.S.
| Rank | Last Month Rank | January 2021 Top 20 Games (Physical and Full Game Digital from the Nintendo eShop, PlayStation, Steam, and Xbox platforms for publishers in the Digital Leader Panel) ranked on dollar sales | Publisher |
| 1 | 1 | Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War | Activision Blizzard (Corp) |
| 2 | 3 | Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla | Ubisoft |
| 3 | 4 | Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales | Sony (Corp) |
| 4 | 5 | Madden NFL 21 | Electronic Arts |
| 5 | 6 | Animal Crossing: New Horizons* | Nintendo |
| 6 | 7 | Mario Kart 8: Deluxe* | Nintendo |
| 7 | 19 | Ring Fit Adventure | Nintendo |
| 8 | 26 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | Activision Blizzard (Corp) |
| 9 | 11 | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate* | Nintendo |
| 10 | 8 | NBA 2K21* | Take-Two Interactive (Corp) |
| * Digital sales not included |
January 2021 NPD: Top 10 best-selling Nintendo platform games
| Rank | Last Month Rank | January 2021 Top 10 Games (Physical and Full Game Digital for publishers in the Digital Leader Panel) ranked on dollar sales | Publisher |
| 1 | 1 | Animal Crossing: New Horizons* | Nintendo |
| 2 | 2 | Mario Kart 8: Deluxe* | Nintendo |
| 3 | 11 | Ring Fit Adventure | Nintendo |
| 4 | 4 | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate* | Nintendo |
| 5 | 3 | Super Mario 3D All-Stars* | Nintendo |
| 6 | 9 | The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild* | Nintendo |
| 7 | 6 | Just Dance 2021 | Ubisoft |
| 8 | 10 | Super Mario Party* | Nintendo |
| 9 | 7 | New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe* | Nintendo |
| 10 | 8 | Super Mario Odyssey* | Nintendo |
| * Digital sales not included |
I pretty much gave up on getting a PS5 since the restocks are always when I’m either working or fast asleep.
Where are the hardware numbers?
The NPD Group doesn’t disclose them. You are thinking of Famitsu :)
Wonder how you can make more money on a console youre selling at a loss?
I believe one of the factors in Sony selling less consoles than Nintendo is due to the censorship of anime styled games. Nintendo doesn’t censor as much so I’m grateful for that.