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L.A. Noire Tops May Sales Charts, Hits Nearly One Million

Brink comes in second, while Portal 2, LEGO, Mortal Kombat and others linger in the top ten.

Cole Phelps wonders if 899K is considered a hit.
Cole Phelps wonders if 899K is considered a hit.

Rockstar Games and Team Bondi's 1940s noir adventure, L.A. Noire, was the top-selling game of May, according to the numbers released by the NPD Group. Splash Damage's Brink came in second.

NPD Group no longer releases specific sales data for software releases, but it did tell me L.A. Noire sold a combined 899K copies across both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

I was unable to get clarity on which platform the game sold better on.

The full list:

  1. L.A. Noire
  2. Brink
  3. Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game
  4. Portal 2
  5. Mortal Kombat
  6. Call of Duty: Black Ops
  7. Zumba Fitness: Join the Party
  8. NBA 2K11
  9. Just Dance 2
  10. Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars

More specifics tend to come out throughout the afternoon. As I learn more, I'll let you know.

Patrick Klepek on Google+

82 Comments

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Dustpan

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Edited By Dustpan

I demand more DLC.

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Brackynews

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Edited By Brackynews

@CosmicQueso said:

@2HeadedNinja said:

@iAmJohn said:

Still not a fan of the whole "Giant Bomb pretending NPDs are something worth talking about" thing.

jup, agreed. That stuff is just fanboy fuel.

Or, like, really important things for the industry to know.

Anyone who ignores NPDs, I hope they also ignore box office receipts. Especially considering that neither industry can be trusted to release their own internal numbers. They are both fundamentally flawed metrics, but incredibly important for anyone with a dime in the industry. (Which is why they can charge so much for the info.)

Anyway, I finished LA Noire this morning and glad I stuck with it through the final third without taking a break. I had heard a lot of opinions about the ending and I thought they stayed true to the serial drama aspect, even if it made the gameplay discombobulated. Future games like this will have a lot of lessons to learn from it.... Such as fuck Roy Earle.

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SharkMan

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Edited By SharkMan

i like how these things still dis-count digital distribution sales.

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spazmaster666

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Edited By spazmaster666

Glad that L.A. Noire has done as well as it has. You could say that this was expected since it has Rockstar on the cover, but anyone who saw any of the marketing for this game knew it wasn't a GTA style game so I hope this is a promising sign for this market.

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sirpenguin

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Edited By sirpenguin
@patrickklepek said:

Acting like sales don't matter is crazy. I'm not about to make it the masturbatory focus that's found on other parts of the web, but I find it interesting and I'm pretty sure others will, too.

Statistics are cool and all, but bad statistics are far more dangerous than no statistics at all. Considering the NPD doesn't cover DD, or that it doesn't take into account data from 'small mom and pop stores' like Wal-Mart, makes it largely irrelevant for any sort of tracking. Doubly so now that they refuse to disclose most numbers 
 
NPD used to be fun when it'd ignite flame wars on GameFAQs and GAF. Not even the fanboys pay it much mind.
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xyzygy

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Edited By xyzygy
@PhatSeeJay said:

That's a pretty good amount for being released two weeks into May.

Well over two weeks. I think it's pretty good too!
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pkhilson

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Edited By pkhilson
@Grimmy616 said:
HELL YEAH ZUMBA! FUCK YOU CALORIES!
LOL
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DG991

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Edited By DG991

It would have been 1 million if you had released it on PC. I woulda bought like 200k copies dawg.

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shinigami420

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Edited By shinigami420

Meh LA noir was mediocre i dont think it deservs to sell more than a million

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DukeTogo

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Edited By DukeTogo
@Burrobean said:

I'm kinda surprised to see Brink do that well. The general reaction to that one seemed like one big "meh." Kudos to to the L.A. Noire team. It's a lovingly made, atypical game that deserves success.

Brink was unfortunately a marketing "success" in that it got all the people who don't read reviews hyped up for it due to all the pre-order bullshit, and every place even remotely related to video games being plastered with it's admittedly eye-catching promotional art.
 
Although believe it or not people do actually enjoy games that are viewed luke-warm by the game press, especially when that press gets games for free and only has to play it for an hour or two after going on to the next free game.  When you've spent $60 of your money on a game that may not be the big game you hoped it would be, you can still make the most of it and enjoy it for what it offers, it's what people did before the days of trade-ins and game reviews.
 
It also marks one of the disconnects that the game press has.  Their lifestyle and how they get/play games is so far removed from the average game player, that it's hard to really consider what their opinion of a game is compared to yours given how much difference there is.  If you got every game that came out for free and got paid to play them, it would be a whole lot easier to shit on a game that wasn't great, even though if you had bought that game with a substantial part of your weekly salary you might be more forgiving and try to get the most out of it you could.
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Metroid545

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Edited By Metroid545

Wait Lego outsold Portal 2?!

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iamjohn

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Edited By iamjohn

@CosmicQueso said:

@2HeadedNinja said:

@iAmJohn said:

Still not a fan of the whole "Giant Bomb pretending NPDs are something worth talking about" thing.

jup, agreed. That stuff is just fanboy fuel.

Or, like, really important things for the industry to know.

Or, like, not really because all those companies probably have good ideas of how their products are selling regardless of what NPD reports.

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williamhenry

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Edited By williamhenry

@Metroid545 said:

Wait Lego outsold Portal 2?!

For the month of May. Portal came out in April, so its not surprising.

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HitmanAgent47

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Edited By HitmanAgent47

Only near a million? I bet it was the xbox 360 version that sold more, I wouldn't be suprised.

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niamahai

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Edited By niamahai

Valve need to come clean and post some numbers. Not just "WE GOT OVER 60MIL STEAM USER ACCOUNTS!"

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Bestostero

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Edited By Bestostero

Seeing this makes me want to play LA Noire again lol

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Hizang

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Edited By Hizang

How is Just Dance 2 still selling, dosn't everybody already have that!

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godzilla_sushi

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Edited By godzilla_sushi

I wouldn't have expected Brink to be so high up on there! That's either impressive or depressing...hmmm hmmm.....

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2HeadedNinja

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Edited By 2HeadedNinja

@CosmicQueso said:

@2HeadedNinja said:

@iAmJohn said:

Still not a fan of the whole "Giant Bomb pretending NPDs are something worth talking about" thing.

jup, agreed. That stuff is just fanboy fuel.

Or, like, really important things for the industry to know.

Those charts are pointless. For starters: Thats only US (and there are other countries besides the US out there), only consoles (yeah, I know, PC is dead) and do not include digital sales.

So thats just a fraction of the actual sales.

[edit:] A typo ... and: I'm pretty sure Witcher 2 has sold about 400 to 500k units until now. So if the top game is 900k shouldnt that be in there somewhere?

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Jimbo

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Edited By Jimbo
@iAmJohn

Still not a fan of the whole "Giant Bomb pretending NPDs are something worth talking about" thing.

You know, apart from sales data informing every decision the industry is gonna make in the future...
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JJOR64

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Edited By JJOR64
@Slaker117 said:
Brink made second? How did that happen?
I'm thinking the same thing.
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phrosnite

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Edited By phrosnite

MK is still selling :) now where is my PC port?

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PandaBear

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Edited By PandaBear

@2HeadedNinja said:

@CosmicQueso said:

@2HeadedNinja said:

@iAmJohn said:

Still not a fan of the whole "Giant Bomb pretending NPDs are something worth talking about" thing.

jup, agreed. That stuff is just fanboy fuel.

Or, like, really important things for the industry to know.

Those charts are pointless. For starters: Thats only US (and there are other countries besides the US out there), only consoles (yeah, I know, PC is dead) and do not include digital sales.

So thats just a fraction of the actual sales.

[edit:] A typo ... and: I'm pretty sure Witcher 2 has sold about 400 to 500k units until now. So if the top game is 900k shouldnt that be in there somewhere?

It's the best publicly available sales information there is. You're right, Walmart isn't included nor is online sales, but I don't know about PC, I always thought it was. Could be wrong on that last point.

And yes it's culturally biased, but it's a good indicator of what games are selling the US, which is, if I'm not mistaken, a f**king huge market for video games. Digital retailers like Steam will never reveal their numbers, nor do they have to, but NPD is the best indicator of what boxed games are selling.

I think it's newsworthy, and I'm sure a lot of other people here do too.

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Vexxan

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Edited By Vexxan

Brink taking second place makes me sad.

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KillyDarko

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Edited By KillyDarko
@phrosnite said:
MK is still selling :) now where is my PC port?
Yes, this. Street Fighter always gets a PC port, but not MK :(
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Edited By MjHealy

I have a feeling that L.A. Noire will probably be a consistent seller for the next few months. I imagine that the game has great word of mouth and a number of people I know (dudes who don't buy too many games in a year) seem to be buying it and enjoying it.

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Munkatten

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Edited By Munkatten

And here I thought GB was a different kind of website.

Down with NPD numbers, and down with misleading headlines.

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UnrulyRuffian

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Edited By UnrulyRuffian

Really surprised that Brink continues to do so well. Makes me wonder whether most people actually read game reviews before buying stuff??

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Edited By sins_of_mosin

@ 2HeadedNinja - You do realize that Japan and the UK have their own charts right?  Do you QQ that there are other countries besides them?  Why wouldn't a USA site like Giantbomb not post sales for USA?  Last I heard, the USA was the biggest market for video games so it is actually important to both devs and pubs to see how well they are selling their products.  And its important to the consumers to see how well their favorite industry is doing.   
 
Yeah I know, this is grown up talk so if it hurts your head, you can just go back to playing games.
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Red

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Edited By Red
@bkbroiler: Yeah, it's good to know whether a game was successful or not. Helps predict sequels, pricing, DLC support, availability. I don't know why so many people dislike this info.
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Sooty

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Edited By Sooty

It's not like it had any competition, is it?
 
The Witcher 2 wasn't going to outsell a multiplatform release and you won't get full sale numbers of it anyway. (Steam)

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xpgamer7

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Edited By xpgamer7

Surprised at how well Brink did, I don't know anyone who played it.