The NPD numbers for the month of January were released yesterday, and it ended up turning out to be a bumper month, with fantastic software sales, and great hardware sales across the board for all consoles. This actually ended up coming as a bit of a surprise, because traditionally, the early months of a year tend to be slow, coming as they do right after the frenzy of the Holiday shopping season.
Speaking to GamingBolt, NPD analyst Mat Piscatella noted that this kind of growth is actually fairly unusual, and that he doesn’t expect it to continue- particularly starting March and beyond.
“January was just a really great month for everyone,” Piscatella said. “All three consoles grew YoY as well as good gains from both 3DS and the Nintendo Classics. The proof is in the numbers in the release and what I tweeted out last night. This pace won’t continue, particularly March and later, but this kind of year on year growth doesn’t happen often so sometimes it’s best to just appreciate it. I guess that’s my short take. It was a good month.”
It really did turn out to be a great month all around- all three consoles were within kissing distance of each other, and even the seven year old 3DS ended up seeing growth. This kind of thing indicates that the gaming industry is in a really healthy place right now, at least in North America- we should all stop and appreciate that for a change.
