August 2015 NPD: PlayStation 4 and Madden are kings of summer

New physical games and hardware generated $548 million in spending at United States retailers last month, according to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group. That represent a 2 percent decline in revenue for the industry, which you can primarily pin on lower software sales despite a new Madden coming out — although hardware as actually down as well.

[JeffGrubb]

Multiplatform games sold better on PS4. Xbox One exclusives outsold PS4 exclusives.

[Thatguy-310]

True but until dawn is under a niche genre so don't think anyone is surprised. I'm curious to see if the good word of mouth will help it stay in the charts.

[suckingeggs]

So pleased a niche game like until dawn is selling well

[Transporter47]

The game came out August 25. Until Dawn being number 7 with only 7 days in August is nothing, but amazing.

[Kribwalker]

@transporter

Gears of war and madden also came out on the same day and both finished 3 and 1 respectively

[FITgamer]

Yes niche and new IP. It's #7, which is much better than i thought.

[triple_c]

True, Gears is an established franchise. Until Dawn is a new IP and it released at the end August. The fact that it's # 7 is pretty impressive in my opinion.

[IamTylerDurden1]

U have to understand Until Dawn released at the end of August and it's selling extremely well in the rest of the world, Gears will sell up to 90% of it's total units in NA so it's no surprise it did well here.

These numbers are US only, Until Dawn had separate releases in the UK, Australia, NA, and the greater Europe. Less than 50% of Until Dawn's total sales will be from the US. Until Dawn is selling extremely well worldwide and massively exceeding expectations, so much so that they didn't print enough copies, it's sold out at many places. Until Dawn will sell 2 million units at least.

[Maddens Raiders]

This article deserves a Lance Henriksen voice over. The PS4 is f'n ridiculous.

[otherZinc]

Gears charted. God of War Reshine didn't chart in July.

[RiPPn]

Until Dawn is also a full priced game where Rare Replay and Gears were budget priced..

[bouzebbal]

Tearaway just came out and is an excellent breath of fresh air

[S2Killinit]

@jeffgrub
Please note that there are also more exclusives released on PS4 this month than on xbox.

[NewMonday]

Until Dawn in the top 10 with only just one week of sales in the land of shooters and sports games is an incredible accomplishment

this is even before word of mouth starts taking effect.

[Kingthrash360]

I wonder if gears numbers are due to literally no AAA exclusives coming out for the Xbox since November 2014...but I guess that's an overlooked statement.

[Mr_Writer85]

@user

Do you have links to the above people flip flopping?

Owning the same console does not equal having the same opinion on everything.

Hope this helps.

[its_JEFF]

@S2Killinit Good point, but it seems like a lot of people only really care about what's coming out during the holiday season, which is an important one, than the rest of the year.

As far as I can tell it doesn't matter if you had exclusives throughout the year, holidays! Does it suck that Sony really doesn't have an "exclusive" holiday line up? You damn right, as a PS4 owner I want something to play this holiday season.. I'll probably be picking up a XboxOne. But what game do you all think is the biggest game this holiday season? My guess, COD or FallOut.

[GribbleGrunger]

XB1: 202k
PS4: No idea yet.

I got the XB1 right (said 200k). I think the PS4 will be around 235k.

[AquarianKing]

Wrong

[GribbleGrunger]

Yep, I was wrong. lol

[scientificreasoning]

Until Dawn is niche and only 4 days on the market.

[Spectre_StatusN7]

Until Dawn in the top 10 is still impressive. Happy for Supermassive games.

[DragonDDark]

Well until dawn and Gears released by the end of the month... rare replay on the other hand...

[Chevalier]

Rare Replay and Gears of War were both budget type releases in price though so $29.99 and $39.99 game outselling full priced and NEW IP which was $59.99 isn't that surprising. Is anyone really surprised Madden sold well in the U.S.? Really?! Until Dawn doing that well at a higher price point and being NEW is pretty impressive.

[showtimefolks]

as someone who really goes back and study some of the sales dat i thought that august was more of a xbox one month.

gears ultimate(BTW its funny how some of the xbox fanboys are touting gears selling well while these same people call ps4 the console of remasters and in their own words no one wants to play remasters.)

Free TV deal

Rare play

gamescom conference and its so called momentum

Madden bundle

if all these things still didn't help than nothing will
-------------------------

Holiday season

Month of september will go to ps4 with MGS 5 doing so well and destiny taken king bundle

Month of october should go to xbox one but halo 5 is releasing so late into the month that i am not sure if we will see the impact of halo 5 in month of october. sony will have uncharted collection and they have the exclusive marketing for assassin creed syndicate. I think october will be a lot closer than what many may think. now if halo 5 was being released in 2nd week of october than no doubt it would have mad a bigger impact

november will go to ps4 with star wars bundle already sold out and call of duty exclusive marketing. This is where halo might struggle, it has to compete with 4 big titles for market share in month of november

call of duty black ops 3
star wars
fallout 4
tomb raider

also no halo game since halo 3 has made the same impact. i don't see halo 5 selling like halo 3 but i still see it doing really well

december is a toss up IMO

on one hand you have MS who have exclusive marketing for just cause 3 and rainbow six

while sony has exclusive marketing for hitman

i am not sure if any of those 3 games will make that big of an impact when games like star wars, call of duty and fallout 4 will be selling quite well in december too

conclusion

at best MS can take 2 months of holiday season while losing world wide. at worst ms may take one month while still losing world wide

All this talk of great exclusive lineup and if it doesn't even win you the holiday season than what sort of impact does it really make

2016 is gonna be epic year for ps4 once again and we have uncharted 4 coming early next year, when i sure remember reading comments about how sony delayed uncharted 4 for fall 2016

scary thing is sony has yet to unleash its 1st and 2nd party exclusives. think about this by the time uncharted 4 comes out ps4 will be about 36 million sales wise

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Halo 4 outperformed Halo 3 and is the highest selling entry in the series.

[jebabcock]

@343_Guilty_Spark

I'm trying to figure out if you just didn't pay attention or you are trying to be clever...

Halo 4 sold well.. But it was a good bit off from touching Halo 3 in total sales..

MS NEVER said Highest as you indicated. they said Best/TOP(which in this case appears to be referring to rate and not total sales). They also indicated this was for the US only and then even referenced sales per fiscal year in a very confusing way(in which there had only been 1 fiscal year of data at the time) as the metric for determining it...

MS also indicated that the X1 was the best/top selling console during release even though it never had the Highest sales overall..

Halo 4 barely outsold Halo 3 in the first fiscal year despite the advantages it had. Remember that the install base was small for halo 3 so many of those 12 million people had to decide to buy a console as well as the game. This is why there was a longer span of significant sales for Halo 3..

Halo 3's 8th year sales are better than Halo 4's 3rd year sales.. and yes halo 3's second year sales are significantly better than halo 4's second year sales..

Halo 4 slumped not too many months after release.. All available stats point to this. That is why less than a year after release MS made a statement praising Halo 4 being the best selling. Because likely a month later, data would indicate the contrary based on current projections.

History seems to support this theory as well... Did you not wonder why MS cited this one time in 2013 and never again made the claim?

Or if they did, they have done it in pretty obscure locations. I can easily find 100 or more articles with google all referencing the July 2013 announcement... but nothing since..

[UKmilitia]

are games given free with consoles counted?

[Ch1d0r1]

IIRC yes, unfortunately.

[yeahright2]

No. If I recall, that was part of the reason why it only looked like destiny sold more on X1 around it's launch.

[Foehammer]

Very true, but not really a surprise:

PS4 has a larger install base so Mutiplatform games should sell more on PS4.

X1 exclusives Gears and Rare Replay have a higher Metacritic score than Until Dawn, and it translates into more sales of those games.

[CartBlanche]

Agreed on the Install base logic. But do you think that the margin of sales on PS4 to Xbox should be as high as 3:1, as the recent MGSV were at launch?
That was in a region that was Xbox controlled last gen. So what happened this gen?

So the ratio in other regions will no bout be higher as they are all, except US, PS4 solid territories.

[Foehammer]

You know I just noticed that the top 6 games are on X1...

And 8 out of the 10 are on x1 with a ninth on 360.

That's got to make X1 gamers, and MS very happy.

[Ch1d0r1]

Maybe because we bought the multiplats?

[Clarence]

Stop it. Let's be honest gears is a established franchise, unlike Until Dawn.

[Ginpachi-sama]

Just wait till fifa 16 drops ps4 will get those numbers

[Magicite]

Yeah its sad that new and great IP got outsold by mere remasters.

[Abash]

Wow, I thought Xbox One would win this easily. Rare Replay, Gears: Ultimate Edition, Madden Bundle, and the Gamescom conference gave them a lot of momentum.

Man you just can't stop the PS4

[Thatguy-310]

Don't forget free TV's

[suckingeggs]

@abash and dboyc

I forgot about the TV deals aswell..

That's got to be disheartening for ms but expect even crazier deals in Oct,november and December from ms

They have the resources to do this ..great time to get an xb1 if you have spare cash.

[BitbyDeath]

Will be interesting how low they bring the price down these holidays. "Buy Halo 5 and get a free XB1" should generate some interest.

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

Article doesn't actually say PS4 was number 1 though.

Although they apparently contacted MS, but MS didn't claim they were number one, just that XB1 sales are up over last year August sales.

[Rookie_Monster]

Actually, it is in there. The PS4 is #1 for Aug and both MS and Sony had responded with their own statement in the article.

“Xbox One continued to gain momentum in August, with sales in the U.S. up 26 percent over August 2014,” Xbox marketing boss Mike Nichols said in a statement provided to Gamesbeat.

Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation 4 outsold its competition once again.

“We would like to thank our fans and partners for their ongoing support of PlayStation and for making PS4 the top selling console and No. 1 in software sales in North America in August,” a Sony spokesperson said in a statement provided to GamesBeat.

[Eonjay]

Well, I think it is safe to assume that Microsoft would have said 'we were number one' given their history. Instead, they are completely comfortable (as they should be) with highlighting their growth.

Also... its there

Edit: Thanks @Rookie_Monster.

[scientificreasoning]

Reading comprehension failure.

[BitbyDeath]

Earlier it had said they reached out to Sony for confirmation and were going to update it when they heard back. It had already been unofficially announced on Twitter which is why they pre-announced PS4 winning in the title.

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

At the time I read the article it said that they reached out to Sony and that they'll update as soon as they got a response.

[Eonjay]

@Outside_ofthe_Box

Yes, I saw that too.

[scientificreasoning]

LOL at thinking rare replay and a gear remske will move 400 dollar consoles.

[sammarshall102]

Seeing how Xbox One moved around 200,000 consoles in August and Gears of War Ultimate released on August 24th, that's what they are doing

[SweatyFlorida]

"xbox announced backwards compatibility, ps4 is done 4"

I remember a lot of people saying this after E3, yet here we are and PS4 still topping charts every month.

[Haru]

Backward compatibility is completly irrelevant imo, it would've been cool if it was a launch features but now with so many great games out already and even more coming soon I really don't see the point like what you buy a new console 2 years after launch to play 10 years old games? It's a nice feature to have but not a console seller

[Black0ut]

The problem there is that you're quoting (I assume, hope you don't just make this stuff up) people that say this nonsense. Do you honestly believe that the average X1 user thinks like that? They don't.

BC adds a ton of value to the console at no cost to the consumer. How about we just lay off quoting fanboys and get on with gaming huh?

Good job Sony, your console is doing superbly.

[donthate]

Backwards compatibility hasn't been released yet. Even preview members get a very limited selection of games.

That said, I don't think it will make PS4 done for it. I don't think a single feature will do that for any console. It is more the package and that is yet to be seen.

That said, Sony hasn't released any numbers and Xbox One definitely received a healthy increase, so the question remains is the difference getting smaller.

It seems like that extra Sony sells has gotten less and less every month.

[Genuine-User]

This is quite a surprise to be honest. I was expecting Microsoft to sell more units than Sony for the month of August as well.

[johndoe11211]

Let me fix that for you:

"the gamescom conference APPEARED to give them a lot of momentum".

[freshslicepizza]

“Xbox One continued to gain momentum in August, with sales in the U.S. up 26 percent over August 2014,” Xbox marketing boss Mike Nichols said in a statement provided to Gamesbeat."

did you miss that part? this is part of what is considered momentum when you increase your sales.

seems rather strange that the success of the ps4 somehow means to imply all others are doing poorly.

[Magicite]

I think September NPD is in the bag for Sony.

[ColManischewitz]

Is this another sign that exclusives don't sell systems these days, but bundles do?

[Thatguy-310]

Exclusives do but not just any exclusive. It's redundant to think remasters were going to do the job. The only time I see xbox taking it is the last three months of the yr. That's if the battlefront doesn't halt that.

[OpieWinston]

Battlefront against Halo 5? There will be some severe Star Wars hype with Episode 7 coming out but MS started the Halo marketing campaign at the beginning of the year and they haven't even kicked it into overdrive yet.

[showtimefolks]

dboyc310

Holiday season

Month of september will go to ps4 with MGS 5 doing so well and destiny taken king bundle

Month of october should go to xbox one but halo 5 is releasing so late into the month that i am not sure if we will see the impact of halo 5 in month of october. sony will have uncharted collection and they have the exclusive marketing for assassin creed syndicate. I think october will be a lot closer than what many may think. now if halo 5 was being released in 2nd week of october than no doubt it would have mad a bigger impact

november will go to ps4 with star wars bundle already sold out and call of duty exclusive marketing. This is where halo might struggle, it has to compete with 4 big titles for market share in month of november

call of duty black ops 3
star wars
fallout 4
tomb raider

also no halo game since halo 3 has made the same impact. i don't see halo 5 selling like halo 3 but i still see it doing really well

december is a toss up IMO

on one hand you have MS who have exclusive marketing for just cause 3 and rainbow six

while sony has exclusive marketing for hitman

i am not sure if any of those 3 games will make that big of an impact when games like star wars, call of duty and fallout 4 will be selling quite well in december too

conclusion

at best MS can take 2 months of holiday season while losing world wide. at worst ms may take one month while still losing world wide

All this talk of great exclusive lineup and if it doesn't even win you the holiday season than what sort of impact does it really make

[Soap_Z]

Madden Bundle and GoW Bundle told you: No

[S2Killinit]

Exclusives DO sell consoles, thats why PS4 with over twice the exclusives and increasing, is selling more consoles. This month PS4 had more exclusives as well.

[Relientk77]

Wow Advanced Warfare is still in the top selling games