The NPD Group has revealed its December 2015 sales numbers for the video game market, and while not all the statistics provided by the group are gangbusters, they indicate that sales of both hardware and software are still going strong. The report is broken down into bullet points below:
- The combined cumulative sales of both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 managed to eclipse the previous generation of consoles (Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) by 47 percent. Both systems had a strong holiday season, increasing gradually from 38 percent in October to 47 percent for both November and December.
- That said, there was a small decline with hardware sales, showing a four percent decrease in both console and portable systems. However, this current generation of consoles grew by two percent over the previous year.
- Overall, December 2015 proved to be the best month yet for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One unit sales, with a strong year overall. The Wii U also contributed to make it the strongest selling month for hardware, beating November’s previous record.
- Although physical software sales dipped by two percent overall, console software showed an increase by two percent, and current gen-software for Xbox One/PlayStation 4 showed an increase by 52 percent, with a total net increase of $73 million in sales overall.
- Despite the dip, physical software sold well across the board for all three platforms (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Wii U) throughout the year, with some notable December launches showing an increase of 111 percent in sales for the month, including Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege and Just Cause 3. Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops III also showed notable growth over the previous year’s Advanced Warfare entry.
- Other games that did well through the holiday season included Star Wars: Battlefront(likely due to the success of The Force Awakens), Grand Theft Auto V (which continued to sell well despite releasing a year prior) and Fallout 4, which became the second-highest selling title for Bethesda, behind the previous console generation’s role-playing hit The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
- Accessory sales saw an increase over the year, growing 12 percent with new releases for point cards, interactive toys, headsets and game controllers. Interactive toy-based games, like Disney Infinity 3.0 and Skylanders: Superchargers, saw an overall increase of 13 percent over the previous year, while controllers and other gamepad-type accessories showed 44 percent growth over 2014’s sales. Headsets saw the biggest increase of all, growing by 77 percent, thanks to models released by Turtle Beach and other manufacturers.
Overall, it was a slightly up and down year for video game sales and accessories, but numbers remain steady enough to indicate that they’re still loved by players of all ages. 2016 isn’t likely to slow down, with many releases set to come out over the next few months.
The top ten selling video games for 2015 are as follows:
- Call of Duty: Black Ops III (Activision Blizzard)
- Madden NFL 16 (EA Sports)
- Fallout 4 (Bethesda)
- Star Wars: Battlefront (Electronic Arts0
- Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games)
- NBA 2K16 (2K Sports)
- Minecraft (Microsoft)
- Mortal Kombat X (WB Interactive)
- FIFA 16 (EA Sports)
- Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Activision)