Living The Dream Was A Hit In The U.S. Last Month

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream was the projected best-selling game in the U.S. for April in dollar sales, according to Circana’s monthly reports.

If you’ve read a lot of Circana stories like this one, you might be a little surprised that a Nintendo game made it to the top last month. That’s because Nintendo, like some other publishers, doesn’t report digital sales figures to Circana, and with only physical sales accounted for, games like Tomodachi Life often chart significantly lower than they would otherwise. Just how much lower has been an outstanding question…until this month!

Circana is now sharing projected top ten best-selling game reports with us. That means it’s using actual known digital and physical sales wherever possible, but in cases (like Nintendo’s) where some or all digital sales data isn’t available, it’s including projected digital sales in its reporting. I bothered Circana senior director Mat Piscatella for a little more info on why the firm made the change, and why we should care. As he explains to me,

The market has evolved quite a bit since the Digital Leader Panel (the group of digital data sharing participating publishers) first began in the early 2010s. Many hit games now come from independent publishers or developers who publish their games themselves. The new methodology will allow us to capture not only the success of a game like Windrose (which would not have been captured in prior reporting) but will also allow for more accurate relative performance reporting on titles from non-participating traditional publishers like Nintendo.

The advantage is that the charts will now much more accurately reflect the relative sales performance of video games in the market. The drawback is, as is the case with any projection, some range of error will naturally exist.

Of course, we’d prefer all publishers to participate in digital sales sharing for the most accurate reporting.

Piscatella goes on to tell me that the projected data isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. With certain games, like Minecraft, Circana does have some digital sales data, but not all of it. In some cases, Circana has physical sales data it can use in its estimates, but in other cases, games are not released physically and Circana must look at other sources, like its Player Engagement Tracker, purchase receipt panels, and public statements from publishers and developers themselves.

SO, with all that data in mind, here we go! Tomodachi Life was the projected best-selling game in its debut month of April, bringing in over $41 million in physical and projected digital spending. It’s also now the 9th best-selling game of the year so far. It was followed for the month of April by fellow debut game Pragmata, which was also the best-selling game on PlayStation, the second best-selling on PC, and third on Xbox. Crimson Desert, which we now know debuted at No. 1 in March, dropped behind them to No. 3, and Windrose debuted in April at No. 5. Saros debuted at No. 9. Also in the top 10 once again is Starfield, which shot up from No. 218 in March to No. 8 for April thanks to its Free Lanes update, which is free, and its paid Terran Armada DLC.

For the year so far, Resident Evil: Requiem is still at No. 1, and we now know it’s followed by Crimson Desert at No. 2. Pokemon Pokopia is the fourth best-selling game of the year so far.

Chatting further with Piscatella, he also told me that Diablo IV saw a resurgence thanks to the Lord of Hatred expansion, and was projected at No. 16 overall and No. 4 on PC, up from No. 65 in March. Slay the Spire II is also doing well on PC, debuting at No. 2 in March and only dipping to No. 5 in April.

In hardware, the Nintendo Switch 2 was once again the best-selling item in both unit sales and dollar sales for both April and for the year so far, followed in all respects by the PlayStation 5. PlayStation 5 sales were down 30 percent year-over-year for April, and Xbox Series sales were down 43 percent.

Here are the top ten projected best-selling games for the month of April in the U.S. in dollar sales, per Circana:

*Indicates the inclusion of digital sales projections

A previous version of this article incorrectly listed both Crimson Desert and Pokopia as No. 4 for the year so far. This has been corrected above.