Major fighting game releases have been finding themselves some strong reception and sales figures in recent years, even among the wider gaming landscape.
The NPD Group / Circana just released their video game sales rankings for the month of April 2024 that features some notable inclusions and exclusions in the realm of fighters.
According to the rankings of the games that made the most money in the United States last month, Tekken 8 is still holding down the fort at 17th place overall.
This is a drop from where Tekken was in March at 15th though only slight compared to the launch window dip from 5th back in February for its first full month.
Now, Tekken 8 has managed to stay on the NPD charts longer than Street Fighter 6 at four months thus far while Capcom’s latest flagship fighting game was pushed out of the top 20 after three.
April 2024 Top 20 Best-Selling Premium Games – U.S. (Dollar Sales, Physical and Digital from digital data sharing publishers, excludes add-on content) pic.twitter.com/fTWBm2ACXT
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) May 29, 2024
We do have to point out, however, that a whopping five new games charted last September, including Mortal Kombat 1, compared to only one in April being Stellar Blade taking the number one spot.
So that may not be inherently indicitive of Tekken outselling Street Fighter in the U.S. with the added competition.
What is a nice sign for Tekken is that it remained constant at 6th place for the total year-to-date sales figures for all of 2024 from March to April, so Bandai Namco’s new ace is holding on strongly there.
On the flipside, though, it looks like Mortal Kombat 1’s sales hot streak has come to and end in its home country.
April 2024 Top 20 Best-Selling Premium Games – U.S. (Dollar Sales, Physical and Digital from digital data sharing publishers, excludes add-on content) pic.twitter.com/fTWBm2ACXT
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) May 29, 2024
NetherRealm Studios’ latest fighter no longer appears on the NPD top 20 for April for the first time since launch, which isn’t too unexpected since it fell to 20th place in March.
Moreover, MK1 has dropped from the year-to-date sales for 2024 as well after finishing 2023 at 8th place on the best-selling charts compared to Street Fighter 6 at 17th.
That still means too that MK1 lasted seven months on the charts, which is still impressive for a fighting game, and is just one month less than its very successful predecessor, Mortal Kombat 11, remained on the charts in 2019
Although Street Fighter is no longer there, Capcom has another hit on their hands with Dragon’s Dogma 2 sitting at 7th place in April and 3rd for the year so far.
April 2024 Top 10 Best-Selling Premium Games on Nintendo Platforms – U.S. (Dollar Sales, Physical and Digital from digital data sharing publishers, excludes add-on content) pic.twitter.com/FWWGqd6zaQ
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) May 29, 2024
And even though the game hasn’t received any new content in years and released all the way back at the end of 2018, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate still finds itself in the top 5 sellers for Nintendo games here in 2024.
As far as overall sales go, we know Street Fighter 6 has reached 3.3 million as of the end of March while Tekken 8 hit 2 million and Mortal Kombat 1 reached at least 3 million too though the latter titles haven’t received a figures update in many months now — so they’re probably considerably higher by now.
The major fighting games are looking to have another strong year with Street Fighter 6 of course releasing Akuma and the Season 2 balance update last week with more characters on the way.
Tekken 8 and Mortal Kombat 1 also both just dropped trailers for Lidia Sobieska and Homelander respectively to show off their gameplay and what’s coming soon.