Mario Tennis Aces Serves Up June NPD's Top Spot, Kratos Following Close Behind

It's a little on the late side, but the National Purchase Diary has released the sales rankings for video games for the month of June 2018. 

In terms of software, Mario Tennis Aces topped the charts for the month for all platforms. While many publishers report digital sales to the NPD, Nintendo does not, meaning Mario Tennis hit the first spot solely on physical retail copies alone. This makes Mario Tennis the best debut for a tennis video game in the U.S. period, which has to be thrilling Nintendo, which recently reported that the Switch is on the edge of 20 million units sold worldwide.

Standing tall behind Mario Tennis is God of War, which sticks strong at the second spot since its April release. In a recent report from research organization SuperData, it was revealed that Kratos' latest adventure had driven $131 million in digital revenue alone.

The rest of the list is mostly predictable, with the unflappable Grand Theft Auto continuing to place highly directly behind God of War.  The Crew 2 debuted fairly high, as well, cementing Ubisoft as the most successful third party so far in 2018.

One particular note is Vampyr, the new game from Life is Strange developers Dontnod and published by Focus Home Interactive. The title came out just days after the NPD started tracking for the month and debuted fairly far down the list at number 18. It is extremely likely, however, that the bulk of Vampyr's sales were digital, which are not counted in this instance.

It is also notable that Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus for the Switch is nowhere to be seen. Similarly, despite releasing on multiple platforms, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle makes no appearance in the top 20 games sold.

The top 20 software list follows:

Mario Tennis Aces*		1
God of War 2018		2
Grand Theft Auto V		3
The Crew 2		4
Far Cry 5		5
Mario Kart 8*		6
LEGO Incredibles		7
FIFA 18^		8
Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy		9
Detroit: Become Human		10
Super Mario Odyssey*		11
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*		12
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege		13
NBA 2K18		14
Call of Duty: WWII		15
MLB 18: The Show		16
Assassin's Creed: Origins		17
Vampyr*		18
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze*		19
State of Decay 2		20

(Titles marked with * do not count digital sales.)

In terms of hardware, the NES Classic actually ended up selling the most units of any console in the month of June, likely due to Nintendo manufacturing the minconsole again due to demand. The PlayStation 4 sold the most of traditional consoles, but all three major platforms including the Switch and Xbox One experienced year-over-year growth from last June.

Sony announced this week that the company has shipped 83 million PlayStation 4 consoles worldwide, besting the PlayStation 3 by two years.

For next month's NPD, we will learn how games like Octopath Traveler, Sonic Mania Plus, No Man's Sky, and more performed in the month of July.