PS4 Again Topped Xbox One in February, But by Slimmer Margin, Says NPD

The NPD data “confirmed that, despite severe inventory constraints at retail,” the PS4 was the best-selling game system in the U.S. for the second month and “remains the cumulative leader for next generation” game consoles, said Guy Longworth, SCEA senior vice president-PlayStation Brand Marketing, in a statement Friday. More than 6 million PS4s were sold globally so far and “demand remains incredibly strong,” he said. The strong PS4 game release slate will continue March 21 with the exclusive, SCE-published Infamous Second Son, he said. Likely affecting U.S. PS4 supplies last month was the launch of the console in Japan Feb. 22.

The PS4’s sales advantage over the Xbox One was much narrower in February than it was in January, when Sony’s console sold “nearly double as many units” as “its nearest next-gen competitor,” NPD analyst Liam Callahan told us last month (CED Feb 18 p7). If the PS4 U.S. sales trend continues this month and supplies remain constrained it may have a hard time beating the Xbox One for March because Electronic Arts released the game Titanfall as a Microsoft console exclusive last week and it’s expected to be a hardware sales driver for the Xbox One. The game is being sold on its own and as part of a limited edition bundle with the Xbox One.

Although the Xbox One remained readily available at most retailers in the U.S., it continued to be hard to find the main, stand-alone SKU of the PS4 at many retailers Friday. All PS4 SKUs were sold out at Best Buy’s website. GameStop’s website didn’t have the stand-alone, $399.99 PS4 SKU in stock either, but it did have PS4 bundles including extra games and accessories that consumers could buy Friday at significantly higher prices. The same was true at Walmart’s website and the stand-alone PS4 was listed as out of stock or in limited stock at most of Walmart’s Connecticut, New Jersey and New York stores we checked at the site. No PS4 SKU was available at Target’s website and most of its Connecticut, New Jersey and New York stores that we checked at its website were out of stock on the stand-alone PS4. But Amazon had the PS4 stand-alone SKU in stock Friday.

Nintendo of America (NOA) didn’t say how many Wii U consoles were sold in the U.S. last month and neither it nor SCEA said how many handheld game systems were sold in February either. But “strong new releases helped” sales of Wii U software grow more than 180 percent and sales of 3DS software increase more than 25 percent from February 2013, NOA said in a statement. Wii U software sales were driven by the Feb. 21 release of Nintendo’s Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, which sold more than 130,000 combined physical and digital units in its first eight days on the market, it said. That helped sales of Wii U hardware “increase by nearly 25 percent over the same month last year,” it said. Bravely Default from Nintendo and Square Enix for the 3DS sold more than 200,000 combined units in just over three weeks, NOA also said. It was No. 10 on the February videogame software sales chart, said NPD.

Total U.S. videogame hardware revenue last month grew 42 percent in the new physical retail channel year-over-year to $347 million, thanks to a more than a 60 percent increase in console hardware sales generated by the PS4 and Xbox One, said Callahan. Xbox One’s $100 higher price allowed it to lead February hardware sales on a dollar basis, he said. Most hardware platforms “experienced double-to-triple digit increases” from January, he said.

Total February U.S. videogame industry sales across all products in the new physical retail channel grew 9 percent from February 2013 to $887 million, said NPD. The growth was fueled by “strong growth” in hardware and a “slight rise” in accessory sales, said Callahan. February U.S. videogame accessory sales grew 3 percent to $221 million, thanks to strong sales of interactive gaming toys, gamepads and videogame point and subscription cards, he said. The point and subscription card category was the best-selling accessory in dollars and units in February, while gamepads had the highest increase in revenue from February 2013, he said. Last month marked the highest February on record for point and subscription cards in dollars and units, he said.

February U.S. videogame software sales in the same retail channel fell 9 percent to $318 million despite the hardware growth, said NPD. Factoring in PC games, U.S. game software sales slipped 11 percent to $328 million. The dollars cited by NPD were only about 50 percent of the total money that U.S. consumers spent on games last month, said Callahan. When factoring in NPD’s preliminary estimate for other physical channel sales including used games and rentals at $131 million, and its estimate for digital game sales at $512 million, Callahan projected that U.S. consumers spent $1.5 billion on games last month.

PS4 and Xbox One software sales were “off to a great start,” said Callahan. When compared with the combined first four month sales for the Xbox 360 and the PS3, software sales for the Xbox One and PS4 through month four were up 80 percent, he said. Most of the software decline last month “stemmed from declines” for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, which is “expected as we transition from one console generation to another,” he said. Unlike the previous few months, where software sales declines came from the performance of new releases compared with the prior year, February releases were “on par with those launching” in February 2013 in units, with only 1 percent fewer sales this time, he said.

February’s best-selling videogame was Activision’s multiplatform Call of Duty: Ghosts for the fourth straight month, said NPD. The multiplatform Lego Movie Videogame from Warner Bros. Interactive was No. 2 in its first month. No PS4, Xbox One or Wii U game exclusive was in the top 10.