NPD: ‘XCOM: Enemy Unknown’ Sales Disappoint

If you’re a hardcore game forumer, you realize the important part of any month is that second Thursday when NPD retail sales are released. Long the lifeblood of fanboy wars, the statistics – which are part of an expensive report sold to analysts, journalists, and platform holders – have been increasingly shrouded over the past few years. While the Xbox 360 continues to outsell the rest, video game sales continue to decline, and no one’s buying a PlayStation Vita, the biggest surprise came in XCOM: Enemy Unknown sales. In short: there weren’t many.

I had my own problems with XCOM, but I still thought it was a great game and from those I know who own it, they think positively of it. Releasing on October 9th, it has been leaked that the title sold 119,000 copies, which wasn’t nearly enough to chart in the software Top 10 for the month. While 2K wouldn’t comment on sales, the silver lining comes from the fact that the PC version wasn’t included in the total (NPD sales for PC games come separately) and don’t include digital sales, which are also something that PC gamers would be opting for considering the consoles’ position on such matters. My personal copy for review was purchased for PC via Steam, for reference. In reality, this just represents the fact that Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners weren’t hot for the game, which has always been an iconic PC franchise, despite how much time Firaxis has spent making the game palatable for console gamers.

Still, it’s not a healthy number for a franchise reboot that deserves so much more.

Source: NPD via Joystiq