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2016’s Best-Selling Games in the U.S.: Call of Duty No. 1, Battlefield No. 2

NPD’s reported U.S. 2016 annual chart put Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare first and Battlefield 1 second, with rankings based on tracked dollar sales rather than a complete count of all purchases.
From TheFinanceBase Team2 min to read
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Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare ranked first and Battlefield 1 second on NPD’s reported U.S. best-selling-games list for 2016. The annual chart was reported as ranked by dollar sales, but it covered only tracked physical sales and a subset of digital purchases—not every game sale or total consumer spending.

2016’s reported U.S. top 10 games

GamesBeat and GameSpot reported the same order for NPD’s 2016 U.S. annual list. The rankings below are the reported dollar-sales order, not a ranking by units sold.

  1. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
  2. Battlefield 1
  3. Tom Clancy’s The Division
  4. NBA 2K17
  5. Madden NFL 17
  6. Grand Theft Auto V
  7. Overwatch
  8. Call of Duty: Black Ops III
  9. FIFA 17
  10. Final Fantasy XV

Activision separately said in a January 20, 2017 publisher release that, according to NPD, Infinite Warfare was the top-selling console video game in the U.S. in 2016 by revenue and units sold, based on physical and digital sales and excluding hardware bundles. That publisher statement supports the No. 1 position; it does not provide a title-level total or the size of the lead.

What “best-selling” means in this chart

GameSpot described the annual chart as ranked by dollar sales. Its report reproduced NPD’s caveat that the results covered new physical video game products and a subset of full-game digital downloads from participating publishers. NPD said the data was not intended to represent total market sales or total consumer spending. GamesBeat also noted that PC digital coverage included Steam but not other stores such as Origin.

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So this is a useful ranking of the sales NPD tracked, not a complete count of every copy bought through every store and channel. The reports provide no title-specific dollar totals or unit counts for the top two games; their positions alone cannot show how far apart they were.

Why other 2016 rankings can look different

Units sold versus dollar sales

The Entertainment Software Association’s 2017 Essential Facts report separately presented an NPD-attributed top 20 for 2016 ranked by units sold. That is a different measure from the dollar-sales order reported for the annual top 10. The same report said shooter games represented 27.5% of U.S. video game units sold by super genre, followed by action at 22.5%, role-playing at 12.9%, and sports at 11.7%. These are genre shares, not sales shares for either Infinite Warfare or Battlefield 1.

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A platform-store chart has a narrower scope

Sony’s official 2016 PlayStation Store full-year PS4 download ranking placed Battlefield 1 second and Infinite Warfare fourth. That does not conflict with the NPD order: Sony’s list covers downloads from one console store, while NPD’s reported chart used a broader mix of tracked physical and selected digital sales.

Overwatch’s PC sales caveat

GamesBeat noted that NPD’s chart did not track PC sales through Blizzard’s Battle.net platform and suggested that Overwatch’s No. 7 position may understate its sales across all channels. That is the reporter’s assessment of the tracking limitation, not an official adjusted ranking.

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Sources and scope

The top-10 order and coverage caveats were reported by GamesBeat and GameSpot. Activision’s January 2017 statement describes the publisher’s account of Infinite Warfare’s NPD result. The genre figures come from the Entertainment Software Association’s 2017 Essential Facts report; the PS4 comparison is Sony’s 2016 PlayStation Store download ranking.

Quick Recap

Bestseller No. 2
Call of Duty: WWII (PS4)
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  • GLOBE‑SPANNING CAMPAIGN — Fight across the Korean Peninsula, New York, Paris, and Mumbai in a high‑stakes narrative where global conflict escalates and survival depends on tactical precision.
  • MULTIPLAYER BUILT ON CONTROL — Engage in grounded, precise combat where fluid movement, player choice, and refined mechanics give you greater control in every firefight.
  • TACTICAL DMZ OPERATIONS — Deploy behind enemy lines as an off‑the‑books asset, making high‑risk decisions on objectives and extraction in a dynamic mode where every run counts.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

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