With the launch of the PS4 on November 15, many were waiting to see just how well games on the platform would perform in its first month on sale. While we only have sales data from November 15 onward, Sony has shared the unsurprising fact that people really like first-person shooters even when moving onto a new generation.
Today, Sony shared the top sellers on the PSN across all of their platforms, including the recently launched PS4. It should be noted now that these sales numbers only represent purchases made on the PSN, and not representative of retail. With that out of the way, let’s get to it.
On the PS4, Sony has divided sales into two categories – digital upgrades and no digital upgrades. What this means is that one list includes sales data from gamers who purchases the PS3 version of a game and then bought the PS4 version digitally for only $10 through a voucher code. As you might expect, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Battlefield 4 and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag make up the top three on this list.
Interestingly enough, only one shooter is in the top five when you take away the digital upgrades. Instead, Flower took the number one spot, followed by Need for Speed Rivals and Battlefield 4. Call of Duty: Ghosts doesn’t show up until the number six spot which almost certainly means that most sales of Activision’s latest shooter came from retail.
What about Sony’s first party games – Killzone: Shadow Fall and Knack? Killzone did pretty well for itself showing up at number seven on both lists while Knack faired a little worse by showing up at the 13th spot. Of course, it needs to be reiterated that these are digital sales only, and don’t reflect what’s happening at retail. It’s also important to note, however, that digital is quickly becoming the dominant way we buy games and this sales data will become representative of games sales at large over the next few years.
As for the PS3, digital shoppers stuck to their guns with Call of Duty: Ghosts, Battlefield 4 and Grand Theft Auto V comprising the top three best selling games on the PSN for the platform. The delightful Tearaway took the top spot for PlayStation Vita while Ys Seven was the best selling game of the month on the PSP.
Sony was the first major platform holder to embrace digital distribution last generation with its Day 1 Digital promotion. The company has become more focused on digital with the launch of the PS4 so it will be really interesting to see its sales data evolves over the next few years as more and more people ditch retail and buy their games straight from the PSN.
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