US charts: Anthem, Jump Force and Kingdom Hearts 3 lead February sales

BioWare’s live service looter shooter Anthem topped the US NPD chart in February, debuting at number one and already outselling all but Kingdom Hearts 3 to become one of the best-selling games of the year to date. It was also the biggest selling game on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One that month, while Super Smash Bros. Ultimate secured the top spot for Nintendo Switch.

Bandai Namco’s Jump Force was right behind Anthem, giving the publisher its third most successful launch month ever, whilst Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts 3 hangs on in third position. Although 4A Games’ Metro: Exodus broke a franchise record for its launch-month sales, it failed to make much of an impression on the monthly chart, debuting in eighth place, while Ubisoft’s Far Cry 5 spin-off title, Far Cry New Dawn, took fourth.

For all platforms across the last 12 months to date, Take-Two Interactive’s Red Dead Redemption II holds the top spot, followed by Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII, NBA 2K19, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Madden NFL 19 respectively.

Interestingly, video game hardware is down year-over-year – falling 12 per cent from $316m in February 2018 to $277m in February 2019 – but PC and video game software are up 15 per cent YoY, raising from $397m to $457m. Video game accessories sales have also seen a modest rise, raising 6 per cent from $294m to $313m YoY. Combined, this sees total video game sales rise 4 per cent to $1.047 billion – up from $1.007 billion this time last year.

Altogether, video game spending for the year to date falls just short of $2 billion, which is a fair increase of 3 per cent YoY to stand at $1.952 billion.

Here’s the Top 10 across all platforms for February 2019: