Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:SNE) PlayStation 4 has become the topmost console outpacing the arch- rival Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) Xbox One, for the month of January. According to the latest data of NPD Group, hardware sales surged 17% to $241 million in January compared to the corresponding quarter of last year. But January 2013 had five weeks compared four weeks, in January 2014, and thus according to the normalized sales gaming consoles increased 47% surge, in which play station was at the top.
“PS4 led the overall hardware sales this month, followed by the Xbox One,” The NPD Group’s Liam Callahan said in an e-mail.
Exact number not known
NPD group did not reveal the exact numbers, but according to the Bloomberg, PlayStation 4 sales were almost two times of the Xbox One. The situation is exact opposite to the December sales, where Xbox One sales were higher than Playstation 4.
In the month of January, last year, Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:SNE) sold 4.2 million PlayStation 4 compared to 3 million Xbox Ones by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). This was the total sales figure for all over the world and this year’s NPD report for January is only for the United States. Last year, Sony sold more consoles compared to Xbox because of the Japanese firm launched the hardware a week before Microsoft, but that is not the only reason. One of the most important reasons is that Microsoft Xbox costs $100 more than Sony PlayStation 4, and thus price becomes the deciding factor.
Video games sales not very impressive
For video games, the sales numbers are not very impressive with total sales of physical games declining 21% from last year to $664 million, according to a research of NPD group. After including digital downloads, used games, social networking games and rentals; consumers shelled out around $1.05 billion, in January. Additionally, normalizing the sales for 2013’s five-week period, game sales appear to be down just 1%.
First five spots in the games were held by Call of Duty: Ghosts, NBA 2K14, Battlefield 4, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, and Grand Theft Auto V, respectively. Research report also revealed that the U.S. video game market was stuck in the holding pattern, in 2013, but there were no substantial declines in consumer spending throughout the fiscal. Growth surged just 1%, which was better, when compared to the last year because, in the span of two years, it was the first time, when market was upbeat.
