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

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.

Surprised it's under a million but still good for LA Noire

Hell yeah, Zumba Fitness!

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

Zumba Fitness: Join the Party???????????

@iAmJohn: I think it's interesting

@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.

HELL YEAH ZUMBA! FUCK YOU CALORIES!

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

NPD numbers are US only. If it did 899K, it was only in the US which means it did much more than that worldwide. Many stories fail to mention that NPD sales only represent the US and even they're not 100% accurate as certain retailers don't participate.

That's pretty good, I like seeing weird experiments pay off like that.

Pretty sad that many people bought Brink though. Game'll drop off the charts fast I imagine.

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.

Knowing that a game I bought sold more copies than other games I may or may not have also bought makes my enjoyment of games that much better.

NPDs are boring.

Good for them.

Good. The game deserves to sell well, especially since it was in development for so long. 

@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.

Thats what good hype does a game. The reaction may have been 'meh', but the trailers etc. made it look a look better than it ended up being.

This list reminds me of a Gallagher quote:

"What in the hell glory is there in first place if second place goes to a beaver?"

@iAmJohn: I think it's of value, it's not like they're doing it in lieu of something else.

Brink made second? How did that happen?

This info is awesome.

Why are you people so against this info? It's exactly like getting the box office numbers every weekend. I find it enjoyable to look at and hope GB keeps it up!

@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.

Surprised that Portal 2 didn't have a sharp drop off.

Two fucking Lego games in the top ten? And then people bitch why they keep making them.

They should have sold more than that!

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

Console only or did The Witcher 2 really do that poorly?

Not surprised by LA Noire but surprised by Brink.

If  899K people bought something you made, ask those  899K to gather in the same area then take a look at the crowd and tell me whether you feel successful or not.

@Jake_K: It's a good question, I also wonder if this includes Steam sales.

*Sigh* What the fuck is Zumba Winess: Join the Party. I mean I know what it is but what the fuck.

@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.

@dezvous said:

@Jake_K: It's a good question, I also wonder if this includes Steam sales.

Nothing digital is included.

L.A. Noire deserves its success. Now let's watch as that success is squandered by similar competing Crazy Face Scanning Technology (tm) Games, as well as some sort of ill-advised L.A. Noire 2 (now with more shooting!). Actually, I doubt either of those things would happen, but wouldn't it be amazing if they did?

What do people have against numbers? Some of my favorite things are associated with numbers like I would like to have 2 chocotacos as opposed to just one. Same goes for LA Noire. The more it sold the higher the chance that Rockstar will expand on that type of gameplay.

This is a good thing. There's a lot of games that deserve this but don't quite get it, but coming out with something good should be rewarding.

confirmed! more Brink and Lego games on the way...

god damit people

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.

I would hope that this recoups their development costs, but hell, I don't know, that face capture technology could have been a multi million investment.

@iAmJohn:I'm interested in seeing what has tickled the market's fancy.

Thanks for posting this Patty-cake!

LA Noire was a fun game but by the end I was just trying to finish it, The story was ok with a poor ending, The gameplay is very basic and the novelty of the interviews and facial software wears off, In the end it got quite repetitive and its a long game so to make a truly great game it needed allot more variety, Not more shooting I think it could of had some more creative puzzles or riddles of sorts their is a few but they are simple and few and far between.
 
I bought the game at launch based on reviews and I really wished I had just rented it, It was an enjoyable game at first but for the last several hours I was just going through the motions to finish it, I was hoping new things would be introduced into the cases but other than a change in story and dialogue everything was the same.
 
I would have given it a 3.5/5

Deserves it big time!

@SkullcrusherMountain said:

This list reminds me of a Gallagher quote:

"What in the hell glory is there in first place if second place goes to a beaver?"

And you've successfully reminded me why Gallagher isn't funny.

Me love sales charts! ;)

It deserves a million sales and more, serious GOTY contender regardless of how well it sold.

I figured it'd sell well but I don't really think it deserves too. Oh well.

I did my part: what an excellent game.

Fuck Roy Earle, that's all I gotta say.