Top 10 in Sales – USA: 2012 Edition

Welcome to the ‘Top 10’ weekly feature. Each week we will be taking a look at the top 10 selling games in a particular genre, platform, most recent month, even sprinkling in the top 10 selling games from a past year. All sales specified will be worldwide, unless stated otherwise. If there is a particular top 10 you want to see leave a comment and it may be featured in a future top 10.

Over the next month we will be taking a look at the top 10 selling games in 2012 by region. This week we will be taking a look at the top 10 selling games in the USA in 2012. Last week we looked at the top 10 selling 3DS games in 2012 and the week before that the top 10 selling PlayStation Vita games in 2012.

Top 10 Selling Games in the USA in 2012

Looking at the top 10 bestselling games in the USA in 2012, nine of the games were released in 2012 and one was released in 2010. For the titles released in 2012 one was released in August, one in September, two in October, and five in November.

The nine titles in 2012 sold a combined 25.99 million units or 89.8 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. The one game released in 2010 sold a 2.96 million units or 10.2 percent of the total games sold in the top 10.

The top 10 bestselling games in the USA in 2012 sold a combined 28.95 million games in 2012. The top game sold more than five million units. The top six games sold more than two million units and all games in the top 10 sold more than one million units.

Four games are first party, two published by Microsoft and two by Nintendo and six games are third party. The third party publishers include two Activision titles, three Ubisoft titles, and one Electronic Arts title. The two titles published by Microsoft sold a combined 7.63 million units or 26.4 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. The two titles published by Nintendo sold a combined 3.31 million units or 11.4 percent of the total games sold in the top 10.

The two Activision titles sold a combined 9.62 million units or 33.2 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. The three Ubisoft titles sold a combined 6.49 million units or 22.4 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. The one Electronic Arts title sold 1.90 million units or 6.6 percent of the total games sold in the top 10.

Top 10 Selling Games in the USA in 2012

The top 10 bestselling games in the USA in 2012 as a graph shows how a few titles sell well above the rest especially if you combine sales of both versions. If you combine the sales of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Assassin’s Creed III they sold 10.78 million and 4.00 million units, respectively.

Looking at the top 10 by platform five of the titles were released for the Xbox 360, two for the PlayStation 3, one for the Wii, one for the DS, and one for the 3DS. The five Xbox 360 titles sold a combined 17.76 million units or 61.3 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. The two PlayStation 3 titles sold a combined 5.39 million units or 18.6 percent of the total games sold in the top 10.

Here are the rest of the top 10 bestselling games in the USA in: There were 19.00 million home console and handhelds sold for the entire year. This is a 27 percent drop year-on-year. There were also 211.16 million games sold in 2012. This is a 27.7 percent drop year-on-year.

The top 25 titles sold more than one million units and the top 62 titles sold more than 500,000 units. The top 207 titles sold more than 200,000 units and the top 405 units sold more than 100,000.

Nintendo sold more games in the USA in 2012 than the other two first party publishers, Microsoft and Sony. Nintendo sold 23.64 million games across its four platforms, the Wii, Wii U, DS, and 3DS. Microsoft sold 15.70 million games for the Xbox. Sony sold 9.17 million games for the PlayStation 3, PSP, and PlayStation Vita.

Activision was the biggest publisher in the USA in 2012, selling 29.19 million games. Electronic Arts sold 24.06 million games and Ubisoft 20.59 million games. Take-Two sold 15.12 million games, THQ 9.50 million games, Warner Bros. 9.11 million games, Capcom 5.35 million games, and Disney 5.06 million games.

The top 100 titles can be seen below or click here to go to the full chart.

Pos

Game

Weeks

Yearly

Total