According to Gamespot, the NPD Group has released its monthly video game sales report for December in the US. Sony also released a statement today claiming that the PS4 was the best selling US console not only for December, but the whole year of 2015.
“As we reflect on an amazing year, we want to thank fans and partners for making PlayStation 4 the top selling console in December and in 2015,” a Sony spokesperson said in a statement shared with GameSpot. “PS4 also had the strongest third-party software sales in 2015 in the US, according to NPD.”
Sony didn’t give specific numbers for December or even the entire year, but instead the company cited the recent number of 35.9 million PS4s sold to date. They did say though that 5.7 million PS4s and 35 million PS4 games were sold worldwide throughout the “holiday season.”
Nintendo didn’t offer any totals on video game hardware, but did say that Super Mario Maker surpassed the one million unit mark in the US in December making it the sixth game to sell over one million units on the Wii U.
Corporate VP of Xbox marketing, Mike Nichols, wrote in a statement shared with GameSpot: “Thanks to our fans, continued support for the most critically-acclaimed holiday lineup of exclusives in Xbox history made December 2015 the best month yet for Xbox Live global engagement and Xbox One sales in the US. The total number of hours spent gaming on Xbox One worldwide nearly doubled compared to December 2014 and Xbox One exclusive game sales in the U.S. between July and December 2015 were up 61 percent compared to the same period in 2014.”
Nichols continued, “Revenue from Xbox Store’s Countdown, the biggest Xbox Store sale ever, broke records with 69 percent growth year-over-year when compared to results from last year’s sale. Xbox One is the best place for gamers and the only console that has all top 10 best-selling titles of this generation that launched in 2015. With an incredible catalog of first-party and third-party games on Xbox One and available through Xbox One Backward Compatibility, 2015 was a tremendous year for gamers, and we’re looking forward to making 2016 an even better one.”
Total hardware sales were down six percent in December from $1.31 Billion in 2014 to $1.24 Billion in 2015. Year totals also show a decline from $5.07 Billion to $4.86 Billion, but that’s mostly from steep declines in last-gen hardware and portables. Both the PS4 and Xbox One saw their best monthly sales during December and both consoles saw their best year of sales in 2015.
For software, the NPD Group announced the top ten games for December and all of 2015. Call of Duty: Black Ops III topped both of those lists and, with Black Ops III, the Call of Duty franchise passed 250 million units sold.