Originally published on Trevor Trove on March 4, 2016
This morning, the PlayStation Blog revealed their best-selling PSN games of February. As is my nerdy-business way, here is my analysis of those results.
PlayStation 4
- Campo Santos’ Firewatch tops the PlayStation 4 chart. It and a handful of other titles bumped January’s top performer – the ubiquitous Minecraft – down the list.
- Despite only having the last week of February’s sales behind it, Far Cry Primal lands all the way at number 2 on the list (and likely would have taken the top spot with the extra two weeks Firewatch had).
- Rocket League continues to dominate the digital charts, only dropping one spot since last month.
- In what must be a blow to Capcom, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 outperformed Street Fighter V. It also had a couple weeks lead on the latest Street Fighter title but I would have still predicted it to outperform Naruto but I could also drastically be underestimating that franchise. Perhaps, Street Fighter V had a better retail record and will even appear on the NPD charts when they come out.
- The rest of the top 10 features heavy hitters from the past with Need for Speed, Madden, Minecraft, GTA V, and the latest Call of Duty still holding strong months (and years) after their release.
- While I did not include the full Top 20 list they published, I was surprised to see the critically-acclaimed The Witness fell off the chart entirely after debuting at number 8 in January. I’d have expected it to hold out at least another month instead of being bested by the likes of something like Sword Art Online Re: Hollow Fragment.
PlayStation Vita
- Nearly a year after launching in Japan, the North American launch of Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth topped the PlayStation Vita digital sales charts.
- The rest of the chart features a mix of perennial heavy-hitters live Borderlands 2, Persona 4 Golden, Minecraft and Sword Art Online alongside what were likely well-received sales like Breath of Fire III on PSP, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z, and J-Stars Victory VS+.
- I would have at least expected Hitman GO Definitive Edition to make the list over a lot of these older titles, even if it only had a week’s worth of sales behind it.
PlayStation Classics
- As I predicted a couple months back, the PlayStation Classics continues to be dominated by the PlayStation 2 titles release for the PlayStation 4. Grand Theft Auto, the Dark Cloud games, Star Wars Bounty Hunter, Twisted Metal: Black, and Rogue Galaxy all fit that bill.
- In fact, the only two titles not from that collection are Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Street Fighter Alpha 2, which no doubt benefitted from the release of Street Fighter V and deals associated with the game’s launch.
- I’m a bit surprised to see long-time chart-topper Final Fantasy VII failing to appear on any of the charts (PlayStation 4 or PlayStation Classics). Perhaps it will bubble back up once the novelty of these PlayStation 2 titles wears off.
March appears to be when 2016 really starts ramping up, with Mortal Kombat XL, the PlayStation 4 version of Heavy Rain, The Division, and Hitman all likely break onto the PlayStation 4 list fairly high up. We shall see next month.