All Consoles Made 2017 a Big Year for Gaming
We frequently hear about the game sales and console popularity through the grapevine, but this new info comes straight from the NPD. One of our more recent reports was that the Nintendo Switch is the fastest-selling console to date. For 2017, it looks like the PlayStation 4 sold the most consoles in the United States.
As revealed by NPD Analyst Mat Piscatella, 2017 witnessed a stellar year in terms of revenue. And it was a very interesting year, thanks to the launch of new consoles. Month-on-month, we saw systems overtake one another in sales. After arriving in March, Switch sales were only held back by shortages. During the late months, Microsoft witnessed a resurgence of console sales and their playerbase thanks to Xbox One X. All in all, however, it seems the PlayStation 4 maintained US dominance.
Where hardware sales are concerned, according to Piscatella, the US saw an expense of $4711 million, which is 28 % over last year. Altogether, the US witnessed $36 billion in game sales,18% more than last year. Apparently, this is the result of more players investing in consoles, video games, microtransactions, and subscriptions. In other words, the industry had a good year.
Further, it seems both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have beaten their predecessors in garnering player attention. NPD results show that, together, Microsoft and Sony have acquired a larger installed user-base than PS3 and Xbox 360 by 18%, and 4% over PS2 and Xbox.