Call of Duty: WWII Generated Highest Launch Month Consumer Spending Since Black Ops II

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NPD Group’s US video game retail report for November 2017 reveals that consumer spending was up 30 percent year-over-year, totaling $2.68 billion during the recent holiday period. Hardware sales amounted to $1.147 billion, $344 million is attributed to accessories, and console and PC software generated $1.164 billion and $33 million, respectively.

Unsurprisingly, Call of Duty: WWII took the lead, generating the highest launch month consumer spending since Black Ops II, according to NPD analyst Mat Piscatella. Things are also looking good for Assassin’s Creed Origins as as it generated the highest consumer spend since Black Flag.

Activision Blizzard remains the top-selling publisher of 2017.

Here are the top 20 best-selling titles of November 2017 (digital sales and Battle.net sales not included):

Call of Duty: WWII
Star Wars: Battlefront II
Assassin’s Creed: Origins
NBA 2K18
Madden NFL 18
Super Mario Odyssey
FIFA 18
Need for Speed: Payback
Destiny 2
Pokémon: Ultra Sun
Pokémon: Ultra Moon
Middle-earth: Shadow of War
Grand Theft Auto V
The Sims 4
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Mario Kart 8
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
South Park: The Fractured But Whole
WWE 2K18
Just Dance 2018
On the hardware side, we’re told that PlayStation 4 sold more units in November than any other month to date since launch. Black DualShock 4 was the best-selling video game accessory last month.

Fortnite Battle Royale Season 2 Begins, Battle Pass Available For PS4, Xbox One, PC

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December 14 starts season 2 with a slew of new cosmetic items you can get in the PUBG-like survival game. While Battle Royale is free to download and play, Epic offers a Battle Pass that will grant you access to some of the new items in Season Two and lets you earn more by playing.

The Battle Pass can be purchased with 950 V-Bucks and unlocks a handful of items for your character right away, including a squire outfit, Pulse Axe Pickaxe, and Royale X Glider. You’ll level up your Battle Pass the more you play during the season, which in turn can unlock more than 65 additional rewards. You can also spend V-Bucks to purchase levels and speed up the process.

Fortnite Battle Royale’s Season Two runs from December 14 to February 20.
Today also marks the start of the game’s Christmas-themed Survive the Holidays event, which is available in both Battle Royale and Save the World. However, players only have a few more days to take part in Battle Royale’s limited-time 50 vs. 50 mode. That runs through Sunday, December 17.

Disappointed? Me too…

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PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was released 12/12 on Xbox One and Xbox One X and it seems no one is happy about it.

As an edge of your seat experience that PUBG is, it fell short majorly with it’s console debut and the experience is nothing short of “early-access”. At $30USD, one would expect the game to at least be “playable” which it BARELY is.

The game tops out at 30 frames per second (Xbox One X), but can often dip beneath 20 frames per second, or even as low as 15 on the original Xbox One console. In short, the game is a laggy, choppy frame-skipping mess.

Sometimes games will show you very low quality objects from far away, then render the higher quality versions when you get close enough. On the Xbox One, the draw distance and pop-in are so bad right now you can’t drive a car at full speed, because you might hit barriers that don’t exist until they decide to show up and ruin your day.

This game is played on a controller, you would think Aim-Assist? There is none, which can take a headache and more hours of agony to nail the wonky movement on the analog sticks. Good luck in the gunfight.

The inventory is also a major pain. It simply takes so long to loot that you will most likely be killed in the inventory browsing screen itself. You have to tab around four different columns of items (ones on the ground, ones in your backpack, ones you’re wearing and your equipped weapons) just to take a scope that’s on the ground and attach it to a particular weapon.

“Similar to its development on PC, ‘PUBG’ on Xbox One will continue to receive content new content, updates, optimizations and more in the months ahead.”

I won’t hold my breath, they can’t even get it right on the PC.