How SSBU is the best-selling fighting game in US history

Last week The NPD Group revealed that Nintendo's multi-franchise brawler, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, has become the best-selling fighting game in United States history. 

SSBU took the lead from another game in the franchise, 2008's Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The news came just ahead of The Game Awards, and shortly after Nintendo revealed that SSBU was the best-selling fighting game worldwide with 15.71 units sold over Street Fighter II's 15.5 million. 

According to the industry-tracking firm, SSBU was the 17th best selling game in the US in November and the 8th best selling game year-to-date ending November 2019. To put things into perspective, SSBU was released on December 7, 2018, just over a year ago.

SSBU has a considerable advantage over other fighting games in that it brings together several video game characters from different franchises. It's also got the right amount of cartoon violence that doesn't warrant a big age restriction, meaning parents that grew up playing Nintendo games now get to play the fighter with their kids. Most importantly, many of these characters have never before appeared in a fighting game until Smash and may never appear in one after. 

So yeah, the odds are stacked against other popular fighting games like Tekken 7 and Street Fighter V. In fact, a couple of Street Fighter characters are already in the game, and fans expect one of the upcoming SSBU DLC characters to be from Tekken.  

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fighters pass 5 DLC is scheduled to launch in February 2020, with a Nintendo Treehouse event expected to arrive sometime in January to reveal more details. Fans were also disappointed by the recently concluded The Game Awards as they had hoped for a reveal of the next DLC character at the event.