THQ's mixed martial arts brawler crushed the competition in May, when more than a million copies (both consoles) of UFC 2009 Undisputed were snapped up by gamers looking to get into some bloody mixed-martial arts action.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship game moved 679,600 copies on the Xbox 360, 334,400 on the PlayStation 3, making it May's bestselling video game. It beat out Nintendo's venerable Wii Fit, which secured second place, one spot ahead of EA's own fitness game, EA Sports Active.
Other new debuts include inFamous, which moved 175,900—no doubt with a little help from Uncharted 2: Among Thieves—and the new Punch-Out!!. Nintendo's boxing game didn't fare nearly as well as its more realistic competition, moving 156,900 copies for an eighth place showing in the NPD Group's top ten.
The bestselling games for the month of May in the United States were:
01. UFC 2009 Undisputed (Xbox 360) - 679,600
02. Wii Fit (Wii) - 352,800
03. EA Sports Active (Wii) - 345,800
04. UFC 2009 Undisputed (PS3) - 334,400
05. inFamous (PS3) - 175,900
06. Pokemon Platinum (DS) - 168,900
07. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) - 158,300
08. Punch-Out!! (Wii) - 156,900
09. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Xbox 360) - 120,700
10. Wii Play (Wii) - 109,800
Total video game software sales amounted to $448.9 million, a drop of 17% from May of 2008, back when we were still riding high on Grand Theft Auto IV and Mario Kart Wii sales.
NPD analyst Anita Frazier makes note of the following. "There are more new releases in this month's top 10 list than we have seen for some time," she says. "As we mentioned last month, it's a great time to release new IP, illustrated by May's strong debuts of EA's Sports Active and Sony's InFAMOUS."
"While there were some very strong new releases this month along with continued strong sales of evergreen games, this month's top 10 games sold 2.6 million units combined, whereas last year the top 10 sold 3.7 million units. Again this illustrates how tough the comparisons are to last year."
