There's reason for Shin Megami Tensei fans to celebrate this month. Shin Megami Tensei V reached the highest release-month dollar sales of any game in franchise history, becoming the sixth best-selling game on Nintendo platforms in November this year.
How do Shin Megami Tensei V sales compare to other games?
This news comes to us courtesy of NPD analyst Mat Piscatella's monthly industry roundup on Twitter. In the thread, Piscatella shares the good news regarding Shin Megami Tensei V, although he reminds us that this still only makes the game the 16th best-selling title of November as a whole. The best-selling game of the month was Call of Duty: Vanguard, which marks the fourteenth consecutive year in which a Call of Duty game topped sales charts on launch. It's trailed by Battlefield 2042, which apparently didn't let its buggy launch deter it from doing well, and Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, the latter of which Piscatella is counting as a single title.
As you might expect, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were November's best-selling Nintendo games (and rightly so, in our opinion). Call of Duty: Vanguard tops the charts on both PlayStation and Xbox consoles, with two Call of Duty games now sitting at number one and two in the year-to-date software sales figures as a whole. It's looking like Activision Blizzard's ongoing legal battles aren't denting its ability to sell its flagship titles.
How are console sales looking?
Due to ongoing chip shortages, console sales are looking grim when compared to last year. Piscatella and the NPD's data shows there has been a 38% decline in hardware sales when compared to last year, with November spending falling to its lowest level since 2016. Of course, this could be because we're out of the launch year for the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, but as Piscatella points out, the ongoing semiconductor shortage is also hurting sales due to a lack of console availability. Consequently, the Nintendo Switch was November's best-selling hardware platform.
Accessory sales also fell, with a 20% drop from last year observed by the NPD. This is with the notable exception of steering wheel accessories, which have more than doubled when compared to last year. It's likely the release of Forza Horizon 5 helped with this; as Piscatella points out elsewhere in the thread, Forza Horizon 5 was the third best-selling game on Xbox platforms in November (and that doesn't count the number of users who played it on release on Xbox Game Pass). It's well worth checking out Piscatella's full thread if you want to see some more nerdy gaming statistics for November.
Have you played Shin Megami Tensei V? What was your favorite game this November? Let us know in the comments below!
