Circana, formerly known as the NPD Group, has released its sales data for May 2023. Totally unsurprisingly, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has utterly dominated the software charts, although it hasn't quite managed to unseat another hugely popular game from the year-to-date sales chart yet.
As ever, this data comes from Circana's Mat Piscatella, who has shared the group's findings for May in a Twitter thread. As you might expect, May's top-selling game across all formats was The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, with wizarding RPG Hogwarts Legacy coming in second place. Given that Tears of the Kingdom managed to hit 10 million sales in just three days, that probably shouldn't come as a surprise.
According to Circana's data, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was the third best-selling game of May, with Dead Island 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 bringing up fourth and fifth place. Year-to-date, Zelda takes the second-place trophy for sales, with Hogwarts Legacy pipping it to the post. Warner Bros' game has also enjoyed massive sales figures, so again, that probably won't come as a shock, especially given May's last-gen launch for the title.
Tears of the Kingdom's performance is even more impressive as, according to Piscatella, only physical Nintendo sales are included in the best-selling games charts. Tears of the Kingdom also prompted a resurgence for Breath of the Wild, its immediate predecessor, with the 2017 game finishing at number 13 after reaching the number 28 spot the previous month.
In hardware terms, the Nintendo Switch was May's clear winner according to Circana, hitting the top spot in both unit and dollar terms. The race is usually between the PS5 and the Switch, and, indeed, the PS5 still leads the market on a year-to-date basis, but the Switch had its second best May ever for unit sales, with only May 2020 beating May 2023.
Be sure to check in next month, when Circana will share more of its sales data for June. We're fully expecting it to end up being a race between Tears of the Kingdom and Final Fantasy XVI, and that's not a bad race to watch at all. Stay tuned for more.
