It doesn't take the best gumshoe in Los Angeles to figure out which game sold more than the rest in the month of May. While I'd like to add a noir theme to this news post, I'm afraid I don't have the technical know-how to drum up a black-and-white filer for your reading pleasure. Let's allow the L.A. Noire music above to set the mood while you catch up with the NPD numbers for the previous month.
In hardware sales, Microsoft made sure to let us know that the Xbox 360 was the top-selling console for May with 270,000 units walking out the door with new owners. That's a 39% year-over-year gain. As an industry, game spending is down 13% with a drop from $829.4 million to $718.8 million. May had three high-profile releases last year while only two made their way out the door this year: L.A. Noire and Brink. Here's the top 10 with a breakdown after the fact:
1. L.A. Noire (Xbox 360, PS3)
2. Brink (360, PS3, PC)
3. Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (Wii, 360, NDS, PS3, 3DS, PSP, PC)
4. Portal 2 (360, PS3, PC)
5. Mortal Kombat 2011 (PS3, 360)
6. Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, Wii, NDS, PC)
7. Zumba Fitness: Join the Party (Wii, 360, PS3)
8. NBA 2K11 (360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, PC)
9. Just Dance 2 (Wii)
10. Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (Wii, NDS, 360, PS3, 3DS, PSP, PC)
Obviously Brink wasn't affected by its mixed reviews or the great PSN outage of 2011, but it wasn't enough to stop a Rockstar Games juggernaut like L.A. Noire. Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat were April's big sellers and they continue into May with their high-profile names in tow. Black Ops also picked up some sales, most likely thanks to new DLC. LEGO games also reigned champion thanks to the start of summer break for some children and the fact that one of them had a movie starring Johnny Depp attached to it… or was that the other way around? Even NBA 2K11 can be explained by the finals ending just last night.
So what the hell are Zumba Fitness and Just Dance 2 doing on this list? The best explanation will get featured in The People Speak at the end of this week.
