US gaming analysis firm The NPD Group has released its figures for December 2022, and it looks like Call of Duty is continuing its stint on the software throne. The latest game in the series, Modern Warfare 2, was December's best-selling game in dollar terms, and over in hardware land, the PS5 and Switch are waging a battle for supremacy.
According to NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (that's the 2022 version, of course, not the 2009 version) topped sales charts for December, with Nintendo's Pokemon Scarlet and Violet coming in second. That's not a bad showing for Pokemon, considering that Modern Warfare 2 is a multiplatform release.
In third place was Sony's God of War Ragnarok, with Madden NFL 23 and FIFA 23 occupying fourth and fifth place respectively. Sonic Frontiers is in sixth place, and From Software's runaway hit Elden Ring managed to beat Need for Speed: Unbound to seventh place, despite the fact that the latter was a new release in December while the former was released all the way back in February.
Modern Warfare 2 also comes out on top on both PlayStation and Xbox charts, as you might expect. Nintendo's chart looks a little different, with Pokemon Scarlet and Violet unsurprisingly hitting the number one spot on Switch for December. It's worth noting that Piscatella and the NPD Group are calculating this via dollar sales, not units; the figures are based on revenue generated by the games, not the amount of copies sold.
Hardware-wise, Piscatella says the Switch won out in December according to unit sales, but that the PS5 ruled the roost when it came to dollar sales. The Xbox Series range comes up in third place on both counts, although Piscatella doesn't provide any figures, so we don't know how close the competition was.
2022: the gaming year in review, according to the NPD Group
As well as the figures for December, the NPD Group also provides a breakdown of gaming dollar sales across 2022. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was 2022's best-selling game in dollar terms, with Elden Ring coming in second, followed by Madden NFL 23, God of War Ragnarok, and Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. 2021's Call of Duty: Vanguard also has a spot on the table, beating out 2022 competitors like Sonic Frontiers and Gotham Knights.
Across the year, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet tops the Switch charts, and Modern Warfare 2 once again emerges victorious on the PlayStation and Xbox charts. God of War Ragnarok claims second place on 2022's PlayStation charts, while Xbox's silver medal goes to Elden Ring.
2022's hardware battle is identical to December's, with the Switch winning out on unit sales but the PS5 pipping it to the post on dollar sales. Again, the Xbox Series X|S loses out on both counts, although there aren't any specific numbers for 2022 hardware sales here either.
It's well worth checking out Piscatella's full thread if you want to see tables containing all of 2022's best-selling games, as well as nerdy financial stats like industry spending and projections. Stay tuned to TechRaptor for more sales figures and statistical goodness.
