Following yesterday's release of July's top 20 best-selling PC games, marketing research firm NPD Group has issued its list of the top-selling PC titles at United States retailers during the week of August 10-16.

While the list is virtually unchanged from last week's, the impending releases of Maxis' The Sims 2 Apartment Life Expansion Pack and Spore may soon change things.

1. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard / $38 (Average)
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)
3. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20 (Average)
4. Spore Creature Creator / EA Maxis / $10 (Average)
5. Nancy Drew: The Phantom Of Venice / Her Interactive / $20 (Average)
6. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard / $30 (Average)
7. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $20 (Average)
8. Diablo Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
9. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare / Infinity Ward / $49 (Average)
10. Warcraft III Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)

Games market research group NPD Group has released its composite list of the 20 best-selling PC games across July. As a reminder of its chart-topping run a few weeks ago, Nancy Drew: The Phantom of Venice took the number-one slot for July, coming in ahead of chart regulars The Sims and World of Warcraft.

Call of Duty 4 fell out of the top ten last month, leaving the rest of the charts to be mostly filled by the usual suspects. Blizzard, aside from raking its usual piles of profit from World of Warcraft, brought Diablo back into the charts following the hype for the coming release of Diablo 3.

Note that these numbers only represent sales in the United States.

1. Nancy Drew: The Phantom of Venice / Her Interactive / $19 (Average)
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)
3. Spore Creature Creator / EA Maxis / $10 (Average)
4. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard / $38 (Average)
5. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $19 (Average)
6. Diablo Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
7. World of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20 (Average)
8. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard / $28 (Average)
9. The Sims 2 FreeTime Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)
10. Warcraft III Battle Chest / Blizzard / $40 (Average) ... Read more

Bionic Commando Rearmed, GRIN's downloadable remake of Capcom's classic shooter, sold over 130,000 copies in its first week, claims producer Ben Judd.

In a blog post, Judd boasted high Metacritic ratings (ranging from 86.2% to 91.3%, depending on platform) and explained that in the digital distribution realm, "that is a friggin JUGGERNAUT!"

Judd, a first-time producer, is quick to recognize his own team's success: "And while it's great to have my first title be not only a critically acclaimed one but also a financial success, there is a bigger picture at play here that we need to look at. Consumers voted with their dollars."

He added, "Basically, we have set a standard in digital gaming. The bar has been raised and you have let developers around the world know that if they invest the time, money, and heart into making (and remaking) some great games, you will support that initiative."

The game launched in the week of August 10th on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network for $10 and on PC for $15, but sales figures were not broken down per platform. The PC version was set to debut on Steam but was pulled before launch, prompting community outcry.

Sales-tracking firms NPD, Chart-Track and Enterbrain today announced that they will be releasing a monthly Top Global Markets Report, which will provide a glimpse of the retail game sales in the US, UK and Japan.

The report is said to be "a single source for sales data" for the "the largest games markets in the world."

Below are the results of the first report, detailing sales from January to July:

1. Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, 360 / Rockstar North) - 6.29M
   (4.71M US, 1.58M UK, Not yet released in Japan)
2. Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii / Nintendo) - 5.43M
   (3.53M US, 213K UK, 1.68M Japan)
3. Mario Kart Wii (Wii / Nintendo) - 4.69M
   (2.4M US, 687K UK, 1.6M Japan)
4. Wii Fit (Wii / Nintendo) - 3.6M
   (1.43M US, 624K UK, 1.54M Japan)
5. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock * - 3.47M
   (3.03M US, 412K UK, 26K Japan)

While Grand Theft Auto IV publisher Take-Two claimed the game had sold 8.5 million units, and shipped 11 million back in June, NPD analyst David Riley explained Top Global's missing 2.21M as a result of sales outside the US and UK.

"To be clear, [the report] is not a global product. It covers only the top global markets--US, UK and Japan," he explained. "Global is coming but let's not put the cart before the horse."

*(PS2, PS3, 360, Wii / Budcat, Neversoft, Vicarious Visions)

Sales-tracking and marketing research group NPD has chimed in with the latest PC software sales in the United States, covering the week of August 3 to August 9, 2008.

As can be glimpsed below, the latest figures put Blizzard's ever-successful MMO World of Warcraft back at the top of the charts, with the Diablo Battle Chest continuing its chart presence while the Warcraft 3 Battle Chest pops up for the first time since early July.

All told, Blizzard-developed titles make up half of the week's best-selling software, with regulars from Maxis, Her Interactive and Infinity Ward representing the remainder.

1. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard / $32 (Average)
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)
3. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20 (Average)
4. Nancy Drew: The Phantom Of Venice / Her Interactive / $20 (Average)
5. Spore Creature Creator / EA Maxis / $10 (Average)
6. Diablo Battle Chest / Blizzard / $33 (Average)
7. Warcraft III Battle Chest / Blizzard / $33 (Average)
8. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard / $30 (Average)
9. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $20 (Average)
10. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare / Infinity Ward / $49 (Average)

The Xbox 360 edition of NCAA Football and the Nintendo DS hardware led console sales at US retailers across July, sales-tracking firm NPD Group revealed today.

According to NPD, July's best-selling console games in the U.S. were:

1. NCAA Football 09 (EA Tiburon, Xbox 360) - 397,600
2. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) - 369,600
3. Guitar Hero: On Tour (Vicarious Visions, NDS) - 309,700
4. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) - 284,000
5. NCAA Football 09 (EA Tiburon, PS3) - 242,500
6. Soul Calibur IV (Project Soul, Xbox 360) - 218,900
7. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) - 174,500
8. Rock Band Special Edition (Harmonix and Pi Studios, Wii) - 165,800
9. Soul Calibur IV (Project Soul, PS3) - 155,800
10. Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution (Firaxis Games, Xbox 360) - 147,600

Meanwhile, July hardware sales in the United States were as follows:

1. Nintendo DS - 608,400 units
2. Wii - 555,000 units
3. PlayStation 3 - 224,900 units
4. PSP - 221,700 units
5. Xbox 360 - 204,800 units
6. PlayStation 2 - 155,500 units

The gaming industry amassed some $1.19 billion in revenue during the month of July, marking a 28% jump over last month and a 35% year-over-year increase... Read more

Per its weekly tradition, research firm NPD has provided its regular update on the sales of PC software at North American retailers, this time covering July 27 to August 2.

After topping the charts for the past few weeks, Her's Nancy Drew was bested by EA Maxis' regular chart resident The Sims 2 Double Deluxe. Both EA and Blizzard continued their usual domination, with each responsible for 4 of the week's best sellers.

1. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)
2. Nancy Drew: The Phantom Of Venice / Her Interactive / $19 (Average)
3. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
4. Spore Creature Creator / EA Maxis / $10 (Average)
5. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20 (Average)
6. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $20 (Average)
7. Diablo Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
8. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare / Infinity Ward / $43 (Average)
9. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard / $30 (Average)
10. The Sims 2 FreeTime Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)

Xbox 360 maker Microsoft has denied that third party games--titles not produced by the console manufacturer--on the Nintendo Wii sell better than those on the Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, contradicting a Nintendo statement from last week.

Citing data from sales tracking firm the NPD Group, Microsoft said that the Xbox 360's lifetime third party sales amounted to roughly 68M units, followed by the Wii at about 33.4M, and the PlayStation 3 at just under 20M. Third party titles appearing on the Xbox 360 sold 217,252 units on average, compared to an average of 132,517 on the Wii.

"No matter how you slice it, the Wii third party game story is not a pretty one," Microsoft interactive entertainment PR manager David Dennis told GamesIndustry.

In a GameDaily report last week, Nintendo said the Wii's third party titles were selling "better than our competitors," and provided a chart highlighting the Wii's software performance. Compiled with data from sales-tracking firm NPD, the... Read more

Other Ocean's iPhone edition of Amusement Visions' Super Monkey Ball has sold more than 300,000 copies in the 20 days following its launch last month on the iPhone App Store, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The accelerometer-powered, tilt-sensing title was sold for $9.99 on the App Store, Apple's digital distribution platform for iPhone and iPod Touch software downloads. The game amounted to over 10% of the App Store's total software sales in the month since its launch, which totaled about $30 million.

"That's a substantial business," said Sega of America president Simon Jeffery. "It gives iPhone a justifiable claim to being a viable gaming platform."

Apple CEO Steve Jobs also revealed that the App Store totaled more than 60 million downloads in the same period, though most of those were free ... Read more

Amid increasing revenues for digitally distributed games and downloadable content, a Microsoft executive affirmed his belief that digital sales will eventually overtake those of games sold in traditional retail channels in the near future.

"There's no question digital will overtake physical," said Xbox Europe marketing vice president David Gosen, as reported by MCV. "It happened in music and will happen to our industry."

Speaking at Microsoft's UK Gamefest development event, Gosen added that the success of Xbox Live Arcade and downloadable content for games such as Harmonix's Rock Band and Neversoft's Guitar Hero III illustrate a "convergence" in... Read more

Sales-tracking firm NPD Group today issued its list of the ten best-selling pieces of PC software in the United States across the week of July 20 to July 26, 2008.

Blizzard's Diablo Battle Chest enjoyed its fifth straight week on the weekly charts, owing to the unveiling of Diablo III. The bundle fell to #6 this week from its spot at #4 during the previous reporting period.

This week's list sees the reemergence of Firaxis Games' Civilization IV at #9, first released in the fall of 2005.

1. Nancy Drew: The Phantom Of Venice / Her Interactive / $18 (Average)
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)
3. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $20 (Average)
4. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
5. Spore Creature Creator / EA Maxis / $10 (Average)
6. Diablo Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
7. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20 (Average)
8. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard / $30 (Average)
9. Sid Meier's Civilization IV / Firaxis Games / $30
10. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare / Infinity Ward / $50 (Average)

Publisher Activision expects to pull in $40-50 million dollars this year from the sale of downloadable content on Xbox Live, PlayStation Store and the Wii Shop Channel.

Most of that will stem from additional Guitar Hero songs and Call of Duty maps. While both of those practices are relatively common on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Guitar Hero World Tour, due out this fall, will be the first Wii game to sell downloadable songs.

"As you know, [DLC revenue has] been steadily growing, although in the grand scheme it's relatively small," commented Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith.

On the strength of Wii sales, Nintendo's first quarter profit increased 34% compared to a year ago, the company announced today.

The April - June period was good for a $996 million profit on revenues of $3.9 billion. Nintendo shifted 5.2 million Wii units, along with 3.42 million copies of Wii Fit and 6.42 million copies of Mario Kart Wii during the quarter.

Taking these figures into account, total worldwide Wii sales are now at 29.6 million.

Sony recently announced it sold 1.56 million PlayStation 3 consoles during the same period, while Microsoft shipped 1.3 million Xbox 360s.

Compared to the same period a year ago, sales of the Nintendo DS dipped by forty thousand units. It still sold 6.94 million units, and worldwide sales of the handheld are now at 77.54 million. For the entire fiscal year, which runs until March 2009, Nintendo expects to earn $3 billion on revenues of $16.8 billion.

Earnings from Electronic Arts' PC and PlayStation 3 publishing and development businesses contributed to net revenue of $804 million in the company's fiscal year 2009 first quarter, the publisher revealed today.

The figure marks a $409M year-over-year increase above EA's 2008 Q1 revenue of $395M, led by PlayStation 3 sales amounting to $139M. PC software followed at $86M, while Xbox 360 sales came in third with $81M in the quarter ending June 30, 2008.

Meanwhile, net loss for the quarter was $95 million, down from $132... Read more

Electronic Arts amassed over $90 million in direct digital sales in the first quarter of its 2008 fiscal year, the company announced today.

The sales figures include revenue generated by the company's EA Store, which offers direct downloads of its catalog of PC titles and a variety of games for mobile phones, as well as games and content on the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Network.

In addition to games, the company also offers music via the EA Store's EA Trax division, serving direct downloads of soundtracks from such titles as EA Maxis' SimCity Societies and EA Montreal's Army of Two.

Soundtracks featuring licensed music such as the Madden NFL and NBA Live series are offered via Apple's iTunes music download service, and are likely not counted as part of the $90 million revenue figure.

Following a not so impressive first month on retail shelves, EALA and Steven Spielberg's physics-driven puzzle action title Boom Blox has sold over 450,000 copies since launch, publisher Electronic Arts revealed today.

The news arose from an investor conference call held this afternoon, in which EA CFO Eric Brown said the title met the publisher's expectations since its launch in early May.

The company did not specify whether the figure accounts for sales solely in North America or units moved worldwide. Boom Blox was released in Europe a few days after its North American debut, and made its debut in Japan earlier this month.

However, that figure is likely worldwide, as that moving that amount in North America would have caused the title to appear among NPD's ten best-selling games at least once during the past few months.

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello added that the title "continues to sell well."

Ubisoft's Games For Everyone casual gaming brands led a 33% sales growth in the company's 2008 fiscal year first quarter, the company revealed in its quarterly report.

Sales for the first quarter amounted to €169 million ($263.6M), up 33% over Ubisoft's first quarter 2007 sales of €134 million ($209M).

The publisher added that its Games For Everyone brands—which include Imagine Babyz (DS), the Petz and MyCoach series, and many others—represented around 33% of Q1 sales, or roughly $86 million at current exchange rates.

Free Radical's Haze (PS3) and the PC edition of Ubisoft's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (PC, PS3, 360) were also cited as contributors to Ubisoft's Q1 sales boost.

The company further noted that it intends to release more casual games for the Nintendo DS and Wii in its second quarter, and slightly raised its full-year sales guidance following strong Q1 performance and favorable market conditions.

Sales-tracking firm NPD Group today issued its list of the ten best-selling pieces of PC software in the United States across the week of July 6 to July 12, 2008.

Blizzard's Diablo Battle Chest, originally released in 2003, has now appeared on the weekly charts for three weeks straight--a feat attributed to the unveiling of Diablo 3.

Completely absent from the latest list is Funcom's mature MMO Age of Conan, which was #7 last week and #5 the week before.

1. Nancy Drew: The Phantom Of Venice / Her Interactive / $18 (Average)
2. Spore Creature Creator / EA Maxis / $10 (Average)
3. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)
4. Diablo Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
5. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $20 (Average)
6. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
7. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20 (Average)
8. The Sims 2 FreeTime Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)
9. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard $30 (Average)
10. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare / Infinity Ward / $50 (Average)

The NPD Group today released its monthly sales results for US video game software and hardware sales across June.

Kojima Productions' Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots lead the way on the software side with nearly a million total units sold, while the Nintendo DS and Wii continued to dominate hardware sales.

According to Nintendo, today's data shows that the overall US install base for the Wii is nearly 10.9 million units, making the Wii the "new console leader in the US" and reaffirming it status as the worldwide console leader.

Taking today's figures into account, the Xbox 360 has sold a total of 10.4 million units in the United States since launch. As of April 2008, the Wii had sold 24.5 million units worldwide, while the Xbox 360 had moved 19 million.

June's best-selling console games in the U.S. were:

1. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (Kojima Productions, PS3) - 774,600 (Roughly 1 million including bundles)
2. Guitar Hero: On Tour (Vicarious Visions, NDS) - 422,300
3. Ninja Gaiden II (Team Ninja, Xbox 360) - 372,700... Read more

In the week following Diablo 3's announcement on June 28, Blizzard's Diablo Battle Chest compilation was the second best-selling PC game at United States retailers. Compiled by sales-tracking firm NPD, the data covers the week of June 29 to July 5.

Containing the original Diablo, Diablo II, and the Diablo II expansion Lord of Destruction, the Diablo Battle Chest hit retailers in 2003. In the week before Diablo 3's official announcement, rumors of its revelation bumped Battle Chest sales up to #10.

1. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff Expansion Pack
2. Diablo Battle Chest
3. Spore Creature Creator
4. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
5. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest
6. World Of Warcraft
7. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
8. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack
9. The Sims 2 FreeTime Expansion Pack
10. Warcraft III Battle Chest