PS4 Hits 18M Units Sold

After taking the lead in hardware sales for the months of November and December, two of the most lucrative months out of the whole year, Microsoft’s Xbox One has fallen back down to second place in January. That’s right; the PS4 is once again the number 1 selling console, at least for the month of January.

NPD sales for January reveal that hardware sales were slightly off (by about 5%) their numbers a year ago, but that’s understandable. January is a historically slow month when it comes to game releases, and the only reason January 2014 numbers were up was because the PS4 and Xbox One were still brand new. Back then, the PS4 was also tripling the sales of the Xbox One, but Microsoft's competitive business decisions have changed that some.

The Wii U, on the other hand, saw a 30% percent bump when compared to last year, a sure sign that Nintendo’s console is on the rebound. Software sales were also up, but again, January offerings are fairly slim.

That being said, we did have a new number 1 in January in the form of Dying Light. Techland’s first person zombie survival beat all competitors – all of them old releases from last year – and even took the title of highest first month sales for a new survival horror IP. That’s obviously a very niche category, but it’s an accolade publisher Warner Bros. is surely proud of, and rightly so.

The rest of the top 10 should look fairly familiar to game sales aficionados, although some of the games’ respective placements have flipped. In case there was any doubt, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare still continues to do very well, as do Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto 5. Really, the only big change is that NBA 2K15 slipped out of the top 10.

Dying Light Humanity Trailer

January 2015 Software Sales

Here’s the full list for January 2015, with the respective platforms listed in terms of most sales:

  1. Dying Light (PS4, Xbox One, PC)
  2. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Xbox One ,PS4, 360, PS3, PC)
  3. Grand Theft Auto V (Xbox One, PS4, 360, PS3)
  4. Minecraft (360, PS3, Xbox One, PS4)
  5. NBA 2K15 (Xbox One, PS4, 360, PS3, PC)
  6. Super Smash Bros. (Wii U, 3DS)
  7. Far Cry 4 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3, PC)
  8. Madden NFL 15 (Xbox One, PS4, 360, PS3)
  9. Destiny (Xbox One, PS4, 360, PS3)
  10. FIFA 15 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3, Wii, Vita, 3DS)

Overall, there were not many surprises for January. Some might have thought that Microsoft would keep the number 1 spot after December, but they did raise the Xbox One price up to $400. They then promptly dropped the price back down, but perhaps that was enough for Sony and the PS4 to sneak back in.

On the software side, Dying Light has been a hot topic amongst gamers and reception seems mostly positive. And chances are, given how few major releases there are this month, it will stick around in the top 10 for a little while.

Are you surprised to see the PS4 overtake the Xbox One again? Did you help Dying Light’s sales?

Source: Venture Beat