NPD Group: PlayStation 4 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 Dominate December US Sales

[LoneRanger]

The NPD Group, which tracks physical sales for the video game industry, is announcing that the PlayStation 4 managed to outsell the Xbox One during the month of December in the United States, completing a year-long domination of the hardware market.

We know that during the holiday period Sony's home console managed to move 5.7 million units to gamers all over the world, but it's unclear how many of them were linked to North American customers, and Microsoft is not offering any numbers of its own.

The NPD Group, according to NeoGAF, does say that current-gen consoles are continuing to perform much better than the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, increasing their lead in the United States to 47 percent, a solid feat more than two years after they were initially introduced.

Nintendo has once again failed to discuss the December sales performance of the Wii U or the 3DS, and might be unwilling to talk about the two devices as it focuses on the coming launch of the NX.

Total industry spending for the month in the United States was 3.22 billion dollars (2.9 billion Euro), which is a decrease of 1.5% when compared to the same period of 2014, with both hardware and software showing a slight decline that increases in the accessory space unable to compensate for them.

The PlayStation 4 is also the best-selling home console of the year 2015, according to NPD Group data, and total spending in the video game space was mostly flat, with a fall of 4 percent for hardware, a decline of 2% for software, and a growth of 12 percent for accessories.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is the biggest video game of both December and the year

The first-person shooter created by Treyarch and published by Activision managed to perform better a lot of other entertainment launches, with only Star Wars: The Force Awakens able to generate more revenue in the United States.

In December, the video game top ten includes Star Wars: Battlefront, from DICE and Electronic Arts, in second place, and Fallout 4 from Bethesda for the final podium position.

The rest of the top ten is made up of: Madden NFL 16, NBA 2K16, Grand Theft Auto V, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege, Minecraft, Minecraft: Story Mode - A Telltale Game Series, and FIFA 16.

When the entire year is taken into account, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 remains the leader, but there are some changes to the rest of the chart, which includes Madden NFL 16, Fallout 4, Star Wars Battlefront, Grand Theft Auto V, NBA 2K16, Minecraft, Mortal Kombat X, FIFA 16 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

As always, gamers should be aware that NPD Group charts only take into account physical sales in the United States of America.

Analysts believe that, in 2016, the big trends of last year will continue, with the two consoles from Microsoft and Sony continuing to offer bundles, firmware updates, and maybe price cuts to attract new customers.