14 DAY TRIAL // Research firm NPD revealed its sales figures report for the month of June, revealing that the PlayStation 4 beat the Xbox One once again, in spite of the more affordable, Kinect-less bundle being made available and doubling Microsoft's console sales compared to May.
Sony is in a pretty good position, the newest member of the PlayStation family managing to surpass the sales of its direct competitor, the Xbox One computer entertainment system from Microsoft, for the sixth month in a row.
NPD analyst Liam Callahan's report reveals that overall retail sales in the United States are up by 24 percent year over year, with hardware sales being up by 106 percent as compared to last year, and software sales 3 percent down.
The top ten software selling list places Ubisoft's open world action adventure title Watch Dogs at the top, followed by Nintendo's popular wacky racer, Mario Kart 8, and by Mojang's block stacking extravaganza, Minecraft (the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 edition).
Following them are EA Sports' UFC and FIFA 14, and 2K's NBA 2K14, showing that you can never go wrong with sports on consoles.
MachineGames and Bethesda's sequel to the father of all first-person shooters, Wolfenstein: The New Order, followed by Call of Duty: Ghosts, Tomodachi Life on the Nintendo 3DS and Grand Theft Auto V are closing the top ten.
The figures point to Nintendo being right that it only takes one great game for the Nintendo Wii U to pick up the pace, with Mario Kart 8 taking an impressive second place despite only being released on one single platform, making it the best-selling game on any one system for the month of June.
"These results reinforce the power of the Mario Kart franchise and speak to a bright future for the Wii U platform. History has shown that Mario Kart games tend to have an extremely long tail. We fully expect Mario Kart 8 to continue to drive momentum for our hardware and software business through the holidays and into the foreseeable future," Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America executive vice president of sales and marketing, commented regarding the racing game's success.
Also of note is the fact that the combined sales of the next-gen consoles, the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4, are over 80 percent higher than the aggregate monthly sales of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
The report shows the strong momentum of the new consoles, especially Sony's PlayStation 4, remaining the cumulative leader as far as hardware sales go and also raking in the most next-gen titles sales, including Watch Dogs, UFC and FIFA 14.