Hardware sales doubled year-over-year in January, according to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group. Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony all benefited from that spending.
“Hardware spending in January 2018 grew 119 percent when compared to year ago, to $278 million,” NPD analyst Mat Piscatella said. “Spending gains were driven by Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 hardware sales growth.”
This is another sign that the console gaming market is as healthy as ever. This comes after a strong 2017 where Nintendo’s Switch debuted to huge sales without stripping away a significant number of customers from Microsoft and Sony. And that “everybody wins” trend continued last month.
“PlayStation 4, Switch, and Xbox One all performed well in the month of January,” said Piscatella. “In dollar sales, the gap between the top-selling platform and the third best-selling was only 3 percent. Nintendo Switch was the month’s best-selling platform in Unit sales, while PlayStation 4 topped dollar sales. Xbox One dollar and unit sales in January 2018 are the highest achieved for the platform in a January month.”
Again, this is not just about sales parity — these systems are addressing diverse groups of consumers. That is growing console gaming in a major way.
“January hardware dollar sales of $278 million is the highest level achieved since the $323 million sold in January 2011,” said Piscatella. “Over one million units of hardware sold in January 2018, also the highest tally since January 2011.”
Early 2011 was still in the height of the Xbox 360’s and PlayStation 3’s popularity. It was also a strong year for Nintendo’s 3DS and Wii systems. It’s a good sign that this generation of gaming devices can get into that same realm of performance.
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