NPD hardware sales figures for May have revealed that the PlayStation 4 was the top selling console in the U.S. for the fifth consecutive month, marking a stark turnaround for Sony compared to the previous console generation, GameIndustry reports.
Hardware sales rose 95 per cent for the month year on year. Industry sales rose by $586 million or 52 per cent compared to May, 2013 and of that, $187 million was spent on consoles and $274 million was spent on games, a rise of 57 per cent. Retail PC games contributed $10 million.
"Much of May 2014's hardware growth was due to Xbox One and PS4, there was also year-over-year growth for the Wii U, and PS Vita,” noted NPD analyst Liam Callahan.
The top five selling retail games across all systems for the month were:
- Watch Dogs
- Mario Kart 8
- MLB 14: The Show
- Wolfenstein: The New Order
- Minecraft
Mario Kart 8's ranking is impressive given that the game was available for just two days of NPD tracking with Nintendo's Wii U bundle helping to drive sales. PlayStation Vita also saw an increase thanks to its Borderlands 2 bundle.
It was bad news for Microsoft, however, as the Xbox One once again fell far short of the PS4. The hardware charts for the month stood at:
- PS4 (197,000)
- 3DS (97,000)
- Xbox One (77,000)
- Wii U (61,000)
- Xbox 360 (57,000)
- PlayStation Vita (56,000)
- PS3 (36,000)
- Wii (11,000)
The Xbox 360 dominated home console sales consistently during the last generation in the U.S. while its successor has lagged consistently behind the PS4 worldwide. The figures for this month may look somewhat different following the release of the Kinect-free Xbox One SKU for $399, the same price as the PS4, on June 9th.
