Today is May 4th, and as we said just a few days ago, today is also Star Wars Day. Multiple games from the franchise are currently on sale on the Nintendo Switch eShop. However, Nintendo are not the only ones celebrating the occasion. The NPD Group have also decided to give some interesting sales data related to the franchise.
NPD analyst Mat Piscatella shared a chart, courtesy of The NPD Group, of the top 10 best-selling Star Wars games in the U.S. from January 1995 through March 2021. Although none of the Star Wars titles currently on sale on the Switch eShop managed to make it on the charts, Piscatella says that “2015’s Star Wars: Battlefront remains the best-selling Star Wars game in U.S. history, with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order ranking 2nd”. Piscatella’s tweet, which contains the chart data, can be seen down below.
These charts over a very extended period of time are always incredibly misleading. They don’t take into account anything other than units sold. As it happens, other changes happened between 95 and 2021. Inflation changed the true cost of a $60 game relative to an income. The population grew significantly and the total number of people playing video games rose significantly. In 1995, Star Wars had been a mostly dormant franchise for a long time. Since then, what, 9 movies and several tv shows, all of which effect the relative interest in the franchise to customers.
Success and failure happens within a context. Remove the context and the measurements no longer have any meaning.
8 movies?
The pre/post trilogy, solo, and rouge one.
For my personal headcanon, I’d remove Solo & replace it with the animated The Clone Wars movie. Gotta give love to Ahsoka.
The animated clone wars movie is what I was counting as the 9th.