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May NPD: PS4 leads hardware sales, month five
For the fifth consecutive month, Sony's PlayStation 4 led sales in the US, beating out Microsoft's Xbox One, NPD Group reported in its May breakdown. Overall hardware sales were up 95 percent from May 2013 to $187 million, and while most of that growth is attributed to PS4 and Xbox One sales, Wii U and Vita sales also grew year-over-year. "Two examples of hardware bundles that helped to drive hardware sales in May 2014 include Mario Kart 8 bundle for the Wii U, and the Borderlands 2 bundle for the PS Vita," NPD analyst Liam Callahan said. Software sales jumped up 57 percent year-over-year to $274 million, breaking six months of declines. Callahan called out new launches Watch Dogs, Mario Kart 8, Wolfenstein: The New Order, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Kirby: Triple Deluxe as the reasons for the increase. The No. 1 game in May was Watch Dogs, followed by Mario Kart 8, MLB 14: The Show, Wolfenstein and Minecraft. See the complete list below. Sony SVP of Brand Marketing Guy Longworth provided an internal analysis of the NPD numbers: "PlayStation continues to be the best place to play for innovative IP, as PS4 was the preferred platform for May's biggest releases, including Watch Dogs and Wolfenstein: The New Order, and held four of the top five spots for next gen software sales. PS4 is the leading next-gen platform for sports, highlighted in May by the best-selling sports game, MLB 14: The Show."
May NPD reactions: 160K 360s sold, Sony sees 'strong results' from PS3 exclusives [Update: Now with Nintendo statement]
The Xbox 360 sold 160,000 units during the month of May, which represents "a 45 percent share of current-generation console sales" in the United States, according to Microsoft's statement based on NPD data. This makes May the fifteenth consecutive month in which the 360 claimed ownership over 40 (or more) percent of stateside console sales, and the seventeenth month in which Xbox 360 is the best-selling console in the US, according to a statement at The Official Microsoft Blog.When looking at all Xbox 360-related hardware, software and accessories sales for May, the nation spent $209 million on the platform; more than the combined amount spent on "the other two current-generation consoles" over the same period. Save for Diablo 3, nine of the ten best-selling titles during May were available for Microsoft's baby, which probably had something to do with it.Those same nine games were also available on Sony's PlayStation 3, though the Japanese hardware giant has refrained from releasing specific hardware sales information for the period. It did say, however, that PS3-exclusive titles like Starhawk and MLB 12: The Show "again posted strong results," though what "strong" means in numerical terms is anyone's guess. Neither title was featured on NPD's combined platform top ten sales list for the month of May. Sony's complete statement can be found after the break.Update: Nintendo has weighed in with a statement of its own, announcing that the company sold "more than 285,000 units of portable and console hardware" during May. Nintendo's 3DS was the only console that didn't suffer a year-over-year sales decline for the period, according to NPD analyst Anita Frazier.
