A visitor looks at Sony Corp's new PlayStation 4 game console at the Tokyo Game Show. (Photo : Reuters )
NPD Group that provides an overview of product sales in the United States has revealed that the Sony PlayStation 4 if the best-selling console for August.
The summary of the report only reflected physical sales and overlooked online product sales. In response, Sony issued a statement that the PS4 was indeed the top selling product last month, with a consistent market performance throughout 2015, except the month of April where Xbox One beat PS4.
Talking to Venture Beat, a spokesperson from Sony said, "We would like to thank our fans and partners for their ongoing support of PlayStation and for making PS4 the top selling console and No. 1 in software sales in North America in August."
Apart from the console sales, NPD released a list of the best selling games for last month. According to the released list, "Madden NFL 16," Electronic Arts' game, was at the top of the console game section, selling more on PS4 than Xbox One. However, it should be put into consideration that the statistics do not include software bundles since "Madden NFL 16" copies that were coupled with Xbox One were not included.
In an interview with IGN, NPD analyst Liam Callahan said, "Bundles are increasingly becoming the standard way to purchase console hardware as 93 percent of unit sales in August 2015 came from bundles, which compares to 41 percent in August 2014."
However, there were no sales figures from Sony, which is not surprising for the competition. In addition, Microsoft failed to unveil its sales sheet for Xbox One, but hinted that sales were better than August last year.
While sales for both PS4 and Xbox One increased, August 2015 did not turn out well for consoles. According to Callahan, figures for console software's physical sales for new versions, Xbox One, and PS4 did not cover up the 51% decrease in the previous generation sales of console. There was a 10 percent decrease in August 2015 sales as compared to last year.
NPD report indicated that Americans spent $548 million on games and related hardware in August. The figure indicates a decline of 2 percent; Americans spent $22.4 billion in 2014 for gaming ($1.9 billion on accessories, $5.1 billion on hardware, and $15.4 billion on content).
