The NPD Group says that Blizzard's online shooter Overwatch was the best-selling console and PC video game in the U.S. during June 2016. However, overall industry sales dropped 26% to $652.2 million in June. Overwatch debuted in the number three position in May.
GamesIndustry notes that this is the first such report from the research firm that includes some revenues of games from digital stores. However, Overwatch was still number one despite the fact that it did not include sales from its Battle.net store for PC owners. Grand Theft Auto V continues to be a massive seller; the three-year old game was in the number two slot in June for best selling games, followed by Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the DOOM reboot and Mirror's Edge Catalyst.
Overall software sales were $322 million for consoles and and $27.8 million for PC, down 20% from a year ago. Hardware sales were also down 42% to $181.5 million.
"Poor comparisons to last June, where software and hardware sales were bolstered by strong launches like Batman: Arkham Knight, led to a sharp...year-over-year decline in overall spending across software, hardware and accessories. Hardware's drop in sales represented 58% of the overall decline in dollar volume compared to last June," noted NPD analyst Liam Callahan.
Even with that hardware drop, the NPD Group says that combined U.S. sales of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles are still higher by 40% compared to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 sales were in this same point of their lifecycle.