NPD April 2014: Titanfall Still Top Game, But Xbox One Sales Not Helped

At least early in the lifespans of the eigth generation game consoles, it’s looking like hit exclusive titles alone aren’t enough to swing the battle one way or another.

That’s the takeaway from the NPD April 2014 charts, which were just relased today. Titanfall was the best-selling game for the second straight month, but Xbox One sales slid from 311,000 units sold in March to 115,000 units in April.

A dip in Xbox One sales is no big surprise since it’s assumed a big chunk of the numbers from March reflect people who bought the console simply because of the Titanfall launch. And as NPD analyst Liam Callahan said in a statement accompanying the latest numbers, both Xbox One and PS4 continue to sell well, with the consoles combining to double the numbers their predecessors moved during the same period of their lifespans.

Yet the big thing the Xbox One was supposed to have going for it versus the PS4 was its much more attractive lineup of exclusive games, of which Titanfall was easily the most hyped. It’s hard to interpret Microsoft’s recent announcement that a cheaper Xbox One without the Kinect will go on sale in June and the fact that popular apps like Netflix and Hulu Plus will no longer be behind the Xbox Live Gold paywall as anything but a sign that execs feel the console needs something besides just games to boost it in head-to-head competition with the PS4.

Call of Duty: Ghosts, NBA 2K14, Minecraft for Xbox 360 and Lego: The Hobbit made up the rest of the top five best-selling games for April. The PS4 topped the hardware chart for the fourth month in a row, though exact sales numbers for Sony’s machine were not disclosed.

(via VentureBeat)

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