Nintendo & Activision Games Lead Top 20 Titles Of July 2021
The bestselling July games include The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and Monster Hunter Stories 2.
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The bestselling video games in July 2021 have been revealed, and Nintendo dominated the sales charts with Switch exclusives while Activision Blizzard has maintained the #2 spot. The summer months are the slowest of the year for video game sales, but that also means what few new releases there are get more attention than they might have otherwise received during the more crowded holiday season.
Nintendo's hybrid console has continued to see considerable success over the past year, with the Switch set to outsell the Nintendo Wii, the company's top-selling home console of all time. Nintendo's revenues fell slightly in the last fiscal quarter, a fluctuation most likely caused by the aforementioned summer dip and the fact that it can't keep up its lockdown sales numbers forever. There are some Nintendo games that seem glued to the monthly charts. Games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe just keep selling, giving the 2017 port a remarkable Nintendo Switch attach rate exceeding 30%.
NPD Group has released US video game sales figures for July 2021, and Nintendo Switch exclusive have taken almost half of the top 20 entries. According to NPD Group's Mat Piscatella on Twitter, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is the bestselling game of the month. While fans were initially disappointed to learn that Skyward Sword's the only Zelda 35th anniversary game they're getting this year, it's evident plenty of them still turned up to experience the upgraded version of Link's adventures in Skyloft. The #1 game for June, PlayStation 5 exclusive Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, dropped to the #11 spot.
Meanwhile, Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War was once again the second-bestseller last month. Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War is currently the bestselling game of the year, while MLB: The Show 21 has overtaken Resident Evil Village to take 2021's #2 spot. It was revealed in July that Activision Blizzard was sued by the state of California, which has been followed by numerous public accusations of sexual harassment and workplace abuse within the company. The developing situation with Activision Blizzard began at the end of the month, so the above figures mostly reflect sales from before that information became public.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin placed third in July, while chart mainstays Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Minecraft fill out the rest of the top five. The Switch's library is still doing impressively well sales-wise, even with the new competition of the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S to contend with. The current-gen systems released by Microsoft and Sony are selling as well as they can, considering the continuing console shortages, but Switch-exclusive games keep taking up a lion's share of space on monthly charts. It remains to be seen if Nintendo can keep up this momentum throughout the year, or if the day will finally come when everyone who was ever going to buy Animal Crossing New: Horizons and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has done so.
Source: Mat Piscatella/Twitter