Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Grand Theft Auto V, and More Top The NPD Group’s January 2016 Charts

It was an incredibly strong showing for games this year with three major ‘Game of the Year’ contenders in Grand Theft Auto V , The Last of Us and BioShock Infinite all hogging the nominations. In fact, the program featured close categories throughout with Game of the Year, Studio of the Year, Best Independent Game and acting categories being especially tight ca

According to IGN , Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive revealed that GTA V made $800 million dollars in its first day of trading, to which they are quite understandably “thrilled” with. The company revealed that the game became “the highest first day retail sales of any title in the history of the company and the Grand Theft Auto series.” For a company that has the entire back catalog of GTA , as well as games like Red Dead Redemption , that is no small feat. But that statement might still be selling this success sh

For a chance at being that one person, you will have to head over to the GameStop website and enter . It’s set up in an old fashioned new-tractor-at-the-county-fair style lottery, only instead of dollars the currency used is “PowerUp Rewards Points.” 1 entry costs 200 points, 7 entries costs 1,000 points and 15 entries costs 2,000 points. Sadly, if you don’t have a GameStop account and have no points, you can only enter zero times. This is truly an exclusive that GameStop was lucky to sc

Grand Theft Auto V was always destined to make a ton of cash being one of, if not the biggest franchise in all of gaming. It was certainly going to need to after becoming the most expensive video game ever produced. Bloomberg had predicted that the franchise would make a billion within its first month, which seems to be a somewhat misjudged prediction now. Mostly because, after becoming one of the highest rated games of all-time , Gta5Play.com it should reach the billion mark point in just its first two d

Significant work went into creating this real world version of the 2013 model featured in Grand Theft Auto V . Utilizing state-of-the-art fabrication technologies, molds for the exterior were cut and machined piece-by-piece for the high performance base vehicle. With these molds each panel was laid out by hand to create an entirely new exterior resulting in a screen accurate reproduction of the Bans

With MotorTrend.com listing the retail value of just a 2013 SRT Viper at somewhere between a cool $97,395 – $120,395, one could only imagine the value of this one-of-a-kind car. With that knowledge, I just hope the winner doesn’t get too into the GTA spirit and explode a hotdog stand or irreparably destroy their Banshee within three minutes of driving

The DLC timeline of GTA IV also suggests that GTA V could be in line for some story DLC of its own soon. GTA IV ‘s The Ballad of Gay Tony and Lost and Damned DLC packs were released less than a year and a half after the release of the core game – so if Rockstar is employing a similar release strategy, we’d better get our wallets re

For example, CVG reports that the game smashed retail records in the UK, quickly becoming the biggest video game launch ever seen. The game sold 1.57 million units for a total of around $104 million in Britain, plowing through the previous record set by Call of Duty: Black Ops which sold around 1.41 million units on its launch day. To put that in perspective, the UK has a population of around 63 million, meaning that more then 1 in 60 people in the entire country own a copy. That is a lot after just one day on the mar

Moving on to GTA V’s setting – it’s big. Actually, big is a completely insufficient word to describe Rockstar’s new and improved Los Santos. Art Director, Aaron Garbut, explains that “When you include interior and exterior spaces together, Los Santos is bigger than the worlds of Red Dead Redemption , San Andreas and GTA IV combined, with room to spare.” That statement boggles the mind. However impressive that fact may be, we can only hope that Rockstar isn’t merely aiming for quantity, with GTA V .

What say you? Do you think VGX correctly called game of the year? Is there any other category you particularly disagree with? Stick up for your game of choice in the comments below, but just remember to play n

The one segment that The NPD Group noted growth in were the sales of peripherals including NFC figurines, such as Nintendo’s amiibo line and those for other titles like Skylanders and Disney Infinity . Growth for that market saw a 15% increase to $235.5 million in 2016, up from $206 million in 2

More accurately, it is a converted Dodge Viper made to replicate the appearance of the Banshee, which closely resembled a Viper in the first place, just with notes of a Stealth, Camaro and Firebird mixed in. Make no mistake, using a real car as a basis and only tweaking certain details is the pattern with most cars from Grand Theft Auto , but don’t be fooled into thinking Rockstar just bought a Viper and slapped a Banshee sticker on it. Allegedly, original in-game textures were used as a template for a completely customized car cockpit, with such specific detail that even the upholstered seats are embroidered with a Banshee logo and insig