New Sales Tracking Method Reveals Switch Game as April’s Top Seller in the U.S.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream emerged as the top projected best-seller in the U.S. for April, according to Circana’s latest monthly insights.

If you’re familiar with Circana’s reports, you might find it surprising that a Nintendo title topped the charts last month. This is largely because Nintendo, like some other companies, doesn’t share digital sales data with Circana. As a result, games like Tomodachi Life often rank lower than they would if digital sales were included. The extent of this discrepancy has been a topic of interest—until now!

Circana has started providing projected top ten best-selling game reports, utilizing actual known digital and physical sales when available. In cases where digital sales data is missing, such as with Nintendo, projected digital sales are factored in. I reached out to Circana’s senior director Mat Piscatella for more details on this change and its significance. He explained that this new approach offers a clearer picture of the market.

With that context, here’s the scoop! Tomodachi Life was projected to be the best-selling game in its launch month of April, raking in over $41 million from physical and estimated digital sales. It’s also now the 9th best-selling game of the year to date. Following closely in April was the debut title Pragmata, which claimed the top spot on PlayStation, second on PC, and third on Xbox. Crimson Desert, which debuted at No. 1 in March, fell to No. 3, while Windrose made its debut at No. 5. Saros entered the rankings at No. 9. Starfield also made a notable jump from No. 218 in March to No. 8 in April, thanks to its Free Lanes update and the paid Terran Armada DLC.

For the year so far, Resident Evil: Requiem holds the No. 1 position, followed by Crimson Desert at No. 2. Pokémon Pokopia ranks as the fourth best-selling game of the year.

In further discussions with Piscatella, he mentioned that Diablo IV experienced a resurgence due to the Lord of Hatred expansion, landing at No. 16 overall and No. 4 on PC, a significant rise from No. 65 in March. Slay the Spire II is also performing well on PC, debuting at No. 2 in March and slipping to No. 5 in April.

On the hardware front, the Nintendo Switch 2 continues to dominate as the best-selling console in both unit and dollar sales for April and the year so far, with the PlayStation 5 following closely behind. PlayStation 5 sales saw a 30 percent decline year-over-year for April, while Xbox Series sales dropped by 43 percent.

Here are the top ten projected best-selling games for April in the U.S. based on dollar sales:

*Indicates the inclusion of digital sales projections

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