U.S. best selling video games: Week of August 31, 2019

Madden NFL 20 has moved from the top of the US physical games wholesale chart for the week ending on August 31, 2019, after holding the top for four consecutive weeks.

After a long period of quiet time this summer with very few releases of triple-A games, this week finally has had four new releases. Interestingly only one of them had higher sales than Madden NFL 20 and was able to move it from the top of the chart to the second position. The new releases together with Madden NFL 20 have occupied the top half of the top ten chart.

The best-seller, Astral Chain is a new IP and a Nintendo exclusive, which was developed by PlatinumGames. The game is also on the top of UK charts this week. It is the studio’s second biggest new IP launch since Bayonetta in January 2010.

Madden NFL 20 is in the second place of the chart, five weeks after its release still performing very well and holding a high level of sales.

Control is another new release this week developed by Remedy and published by 505 Games. It follows Remedy’s period of making games exclusively for Xbox One. Another new IP, The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan by Bandai Namco and Supermassive Games has similarities with Supermassive’s Until Dawn, and is in the fourth place of the chart. The forth new IP in this week’s chart was THQ Nordic’s Wreckfest, developed by Bugbear Interactive and is considered a successor to the FlatOut series.

The second half of the chart this week is mostly occupied by the same titles as last week, including two Nintendo exclusives, Super Mario Maker 2 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Activision’s Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. These three titles are performing very well and are holding very decent levels of sales week after week. The average decline in the sales numbers for these three titles was around 11 percent. Sales of all three titles are expected to continue holding well in the weeks to come.

In the bottom of the top ten charts, Marvel’s Spider-Man, which has a had a significant rise in its chart position, due to its sales jump of over 200% caused by discounts offered for this title. In spite of being six years old, Grand Theft Auto 5 traditionally performs well. The online casino expansion keeps pushing the sales of the games.