Top Ten Best-Selling Games in the US for May 2016

The top ten best-selling physical games in the US have been revealed, thanks to the NPD Group's sales report for May. The top three are nearly identical to the three best-selling digital games on PS4 with Uncharted 4, Doom, and Overwatch standing tall.

The NPD's report does not include digital copies. Uncharted 4 passed 2.7 million copies sold in its first week, while Overwatch hit 7 million players--a lot of these are likely to be digital, especially on PC. However, it's important to note two things: the number of players does not equal sales and the NPD report only covers the US.

Rounding out the top five are Battleborn and Grand Theft Auto V. Battleborn saw substantial discounts around the time Overwatch launched. This sale would have only covered the last four days of the NPD's report (which covers May 1-28). Battleborn was also available for the majority of the month. You can check out the full top ten list at the bottom of this article--the list does not include bundled copies.

The NPD report notes Uncharted 4's "considerable feat" of claiming the number one spot due to its platform exclusivity. It also had the best first month of any game in the series after Uncharted 3 and helped Sony become last month's leading software publisher. Ubisoft is currently this year's top-selling software publisher, thanks to titles like Far Cry Primal and The Division, which were the number one games for February and March respectively.

Doom had its series' best first month when combining sales across all of its platforms and exceeded Doom 3's PC launch in 2004.

Overwatch managed to take the third spot despite it having considerably less time on the market than other games on the list. The NPD notes that when comparing "sales for days in the market, [Overwatch] doubled the sales of Doom."

Games that launched in May were a big contributor to the year-over-year growth. The past month's new launches nearly double last May in unit sales and earned 108 percent more in dollars as well. Uncharted 4, Doom, and Overwatch all launched in May, and they and the rest of the newly launched games account for 51 percent of the overall physical software sales for the month. Total sales increased by 50 percent last month compared to May 2015.

Microsoft released a statement, saying that Xbox One's gaming hours more than doubled May last year with the launches of Doom and Overwatch, in addition to Call of Duty: Black Ops making its way on to the Xbox One backwards compatibility list. Additionally, the company noted that Minecraft has surpassed 106 million total sales and holds an average monthly unique player rate of more than 40 million people across all platforms.

Nintendo's monthly statement noted that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D reentered the NPD's top 25 best-selling games list, despite it having been released five years ago. The Wii U saw Minecraft's downloads grow more than 40 percent month-on-month, giving credit to the Super Mario Mash-Up Pack DLC.

Sony took the top spot for hardware once again. Every game in the top 10 sold better on the PS4 except Call of Duty: Black Ops 3--it sold better on the Xbox One.

Best-Selling Physical Games in the US for May 2016

• Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (PS4)
• Doom (PS4, Xbox One, PC)
• Overwatch (PS4, Xbox One, PC)
• Battleborn (PS4, Xbox One, PC)
• Grand Theft Auto V (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3, PC)
• Minecraft (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)
• NBA 2K16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (Xbox One, PS4, 360, PS3, PC)
• MLB The Show 16 (PS4, PS3)
• Dark Souls III (PS4, Xbox One)