The NPD Group recently released their US game sales report for November. The report’s findings are interesting, and indicate that Fallout 76 sales weren’t terrible, but did fall behind three other major releases. While there are some numbers potentially missing from the report, it also indicates that the game did not continue the upward trend for Fallout series launch sale figures.
Fallout 76 Sales in November Compared to Other Major Releases
Fallout 76 sales ranked fourth in November, according to the NPD Group. The game was reportedly outsold by Red Dead Redemption 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, and Battlefield 5. Many market reports like these often list only physical retail sales due to the difficulty in tracking digital sales. As such, these reports only offer a snapshot of part of a larger picture in some cases. The NPD Group’s reports have recently begun to include digital sales figures. However, these figures are only included where the company has actually released them. Bethesda does not yet share their digital sales figures. As such, Fallout 76’s position on the recent report is based solely on the game’s retail sales.
Given that Fallout 76 was the fourth best-selling game in November based on physical sales alone; the game may actually have performed better than some analysts predicted following its poor review performance. However, the sales did fall behind two key figures; the launch sales for both Fallout 4 and Fallout: New Vegas. The Fallout series had enjoyed a consistent upwards trend in launch sales figures, but Fallout 76 fell short of that trend.
The onus is now on Bethesda to fix the problems which gamers have with Fallout 76 and renew interest in the game. This is certainly an achievable target; one need only look at a game like No Man’s Sky to see how the gaming community’s opinion can be won over. The next major patch is due to arrive in mid-January, followed by some form of new PvP mode which was recently teased by Bethesda.