The NPD Group has shared its report for video game hardware and software sales in the United States for the month of January, and as many may have expected, the Nintendo Switch emerged as the top selling console of the month, ahead of the PS4 and Xbox One. It was also the console that generated the most revenue during the month in hardware sales.

The Switch managed this in spite of missing out on two of the biggest releases of the month—Resident Evil 2 and Kingdom Hearts 3, suggesting the continued momentum from Pokemon Let’s Go and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, alongside the new launch of New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, was enough to explain the continued demand for it.

In fact, the Switch was the only console to see a year on year increase in January, VentureBeat reports. However, its year on year gains were not enough to offset the losses suffered by PS4 and Xbox One, and overall spending on hardware fell to $199 million (down 28% from $278 million in January 2018).

Given the absurdly packed lineup the Switch has for this year, I think we can expect to see it topping the charts reasonably frequently from here on out.

So when we get NPD results with PS4 and Switch in the lead, and Xbox in dead last, which happened in the month of November, at first glance it seems like business as usual. Yes, Xbox trailed behind the other two consoles, like it has for all its life. What else is news?

But last month’s NPD results were a bit special in this regard. The Xbox One was still dead last, behind the Switch and PS4, so on surface, there’s not much more to consider here from that perspective. But last month’s results were actually record breaking for one reason—all three consoles managed to sell over 1 million units for the month, something that has never happened before (previously, we have had three systems sell over a million in a month, but one of them was a handheld. To be precise, all three consoles sold over 1.3 million units.

PS4 and Switch selling that well in a month during Holiday season is something you expect. They are naturally strong products, commercially speaking, and they both had exciting Holiday propositions, with Sony riding the launch of Spider-Man, a game based on the most popular superhero in the world, and exclusive to their platform; and Nintendo riding the one two whammy of Pokemon Let’s Go, and in November the still upcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Of course the two consoles sold well.

But what about Xbox One? While Xbox had aggressive discounts and bundles, as is par for the course for the brand now every Holiday shopping season, there was no major new mass market level exclusive for them to push console sales. Yes, we had Forza Horizon 4 launch back in September, and it was great. But it’s the third Forza Horizon game on Xbox One, and the sixth Forza game on the console overall. And Forza, even Forza Horizon, great though it is, is decidedly not mass market, at least not next to something like Spider-Man and Pokemon.

What’s more, unlike 2016 and 2017, when there was new hardware to propel sales—Xbox One S and Xbox One X respectively—there was nothing of the sort here. So the million plus units of sales for Xbox One were truly a surprise. A pleasant surprise, to be clear—it was great to see the console do well (along with the other two). With all three consoles doing so well, it was a clear indication that the United States gaming market is healthy, and trucking along well.

But for Microsoft, specifically, it is also good news. You see, the fact that the Xbox One managed to sell as well as it has without any major new game or hardware launch to push it, in the face of such fierce competition, indicates a lingering loyalty and legacy for the Xbox brand, at least in the United States. It indicates that consumers there recognize the Xbox brand, and are absolutely fine with gravitating to it, even without any immediate impetus to do so. That is the kind of loyalty Nintendo and PlayStation enjoy, where customers are willing to pick their systems up, leading to consistent sales around the world. It’s why even absolutely undesirable products such as the Wii U or the PlayStation Vita manage to sell whatever they can manage, even when there are zero compelling reasons to actually buy them—because customers trust the consoles to give them something they might enjoy.

Xbox enjoying that kind of loyalty in the United States at the very least is good news, because it means there is life in the Xbox brand yet. The Xbox brand has taken a batterring through this generation, thanks mostly to missteps and ill conceived moves made earlier in the Xbox One’s life. Phil Spencer and his team have spent the better part of their tenure trying to right the ship, and rehabilitate the Xbox’s image as a brand and as a console family. They’ve invested heavily in differentiating services, introduced new, powerful and easy to develop for, gaming focused hardware, and expanded their portfolio of first party studios to have better and more consistent first party exclusive games.

But most of these steps have come either too late to help the Xbox One, or too early to help it (such as the studios Microsoft has bought—in the future, they will help Xbox a lot, but by the time they start churning out games, the Xbox One will be made obsolete by whatever its successor ends up being). In other words, Microsoft and Xbox have been rebuilding mode for a while now.

You could expect Xbox to do better next generation as a result of all these moves—I certainly do. I don’t know if I expect Xbox to go toe to toe with PlayStation or Nintendo, but I expect a far better performance from it than we got from the Xbox One. But you also expect the Xbox One, in the here and now, to not really benefit much from any of this.

Which means these high sales for the Xbox One are a surprise of the best kind: they show Microsoft the brand has value and lingering loyalty, and there are people who will go to the Xbox in the future, once they have a compelling offering. The Xbox One X is it, but it comes too late in the generation to counter PlayStation and Nintendo’s inertia and momentum. But the next generation will be a reset, and as long as Microsoft gets it right from the get go this time, it will do better. Their in built brand legacy, at least in the US, gives them sure footing to start building up, if nothing else.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

In terms of spending money on TV commercials for their products, Sony was the top gaming company for the month of September, reports GamesBeat and its partner iSpot.tv. iSpot is a real time ad measurement and tracking company for television, and it reports that Sony spent an estimated $24.2 million in September, for nine commercials airing more than 2,900 times.

That exposure led to results, as they got 1.1 billion impressions from all that advertising. The lion’s share of this spending went to Spider-Man, and its “Be Greater” commercials. Microsoft came in at second place, with $8.2 million spent over four ads airing 3,000 times and generating 569.5 million impressions. The spend was mostly for third party games they have partnerships with, such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider and NBA 2K19.

Meanwhile, Nintendo, which topped this chart back in June, was now in third place, having spent $4.45 million for ten ads that aired 2,700 times and resulted in 335.4 million impressions.

Given the impending release of Red Dead Redemption 2, for which Sony holds marketing rights, I expect them to top the spending metric for October as well. After that, however, it’s anybody’s guess who wins. With Pokemon and Smash launching in November and December, Nintendo will have two big games to push, so maybe they will.

The NPD Group just released its report of video game sales in the United States for the month of August 2018, and while things on the software front were exceptionally interesting, things on the hardware front were even more so (though I imagine legions of console warriors who are obsessed with their favorite platform “winning” the NPD will be disappointed).

You see, in the month of August, in terms of dollar sales, the NPD Group reports (via VentureBeat) that the Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One effectively tied, with a difference of 3% overall.

“Hardware spending in August 2018 grew 28 percent when compared to a year ago, to $214 million,” said NPD analyst Mat Piscatella. “PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One, and Plug N Play devices such as the NES Classic Edition all posted year-on-year gains.”

Overall, then, the console market is doing better than it ever has, thanks to a surge of Nintendo hardware sales (at their highest since 2011), the resurgence of Xbox One thanks to the Xbox One X, and of course, the continued strong showings from the PS4. Whether or not all three can continue to fight on an even ground as we go into the Holiday season remains to be seen.

The NPD Group’s report for video game software sales in the United States for the month of August is now out, and Madden NFL 19 topped software charts to the surprise of absolutely no one, getting, in fact, its best opening since 2012’s Madden NFL 13, VentureBeat reports.

But it’s after Madden that things get so interesting- you see, in number 2 is Monster Hunter World, which all of a sudden saw sales jump after having mostly quieted down over the last few months. I have to presume a lot of this has to do with the just released PC port of the game. Elsewhere, Rainbow Six: Siege, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe continued to exhibit extraordinarily strong legs.

Go further down the charts, and things get interesting again. God of War continues to leg it out, as do The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey (with the former outselling the latter, as you have probably come to expect by now). And, incredibly enough, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – yes, the 2009 game – is in the top 10 charts, with its recent inclusion on the Xbox One backward compatibility list being attributed to this sudden spike.

So, it’s been a very interesting month. With most big game releases stacked in the final four months of the year, the next few should be even more so. You can check out the full top 20 for the month below.

Top 20 best selling games of August

1. Madden NFL 19
2. Monster Hunter: World
3. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege
4. Grand Theft Auto V
5. Mario Kart 8
6. Naruto To Boruto: Shinobi Striker
7. God of War
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
9. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
10. Super Mario Odyssey
11. Minecraft
12. Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy
13. Far Cry 5
14. Monster Hunter: Generations Ultimate
15. Call of Duty: WWII
16. Mario Tennis Aces
17. Overwatch
18. Lego The Incredibles
19. We Happy Few
20. The Crew 2

The Nintendo Switch has done remarkably well for itself on the market, having created several records for being the fastest selling home console of all time in the year and a half that it has been on the market. However, the really interesting and fascinating thing about it is that it has managed to do as well as it has without cannibalizing the sales of either the PS4 or the Xbox One, both of which have also been doing great for themselves.

How has it done that? The answer is that people are not buying a Switch instead of a PS4 or an Xbox One- they are buying it in addition to those two. This fact comes to us from the NPD Group’s Mat Piscatella, who noted on ResetEra that in the US, 70% of all Switch owners also own a PS4 or an Xbox One as of the end of March this year.

Of course, this statistic makes sense, given that there are three and a half years separating the launches of the Xbox One and PS4 and the launch of the Switch; the direct competition between the systems was reduced as a result. Going forward, it will be interesting to see just how much longer this trend holds.

Leading video game retailer in the United States GameStop may be gearing up to kill its Elite Pro loyalty program, if word on Reddit, as well as by perennial games industry watcher Wario64 on Twitter, is to be believed. Elite Pro membership was the highest tier of rewards programs GameStop offered, offering better trade in deals and offers, as well as more points per purchase to use towards something else in the future than any other tier.

Now, GameStop may be gearing up to retire it. According to this rumor, you can still purchase a membership, or renew your existing one (including stacking up on top ups), until August 1, but only until that date- after that point, you will no longer be able to purchase this tier.

GameStop, of course, is not the only games retailer that has retired a popular loyalty program (assuming this rumor turns out to be true)- Best Buy recently got rid of its beloved Gamer’s Club Unlimited program as well, and Amazon has reduced the game specific benefits Amazon Prime offers. Gamers looking for good deals on purchases are rapidly running out of good options.

For those that were interested in GameStop Elite Pro memberships, the program will retire on August 1st. You can renew/purchase but only before that date. https://t.co/VChlsDvnXe pic.twitter.com/GSPlhVLD7u

— Wario64 (@Wario64) July 30, 2018

NPD results for the month of May came out earlier today, and the PS4 came out on top yet again- but Xbox and Switch managed to do well too, with all three consoles getting their best May numbers yet, and Switch ending as the highest selling SKU for the month.

But there is no denying the PS4 has done the best through this year, especially on the back of God of War– is that something that we can realistically expect to continue for a while? PS4 has the momentum right now, and while Switch has some big releases lined up in the back half of the year, neither them nor Xbox One have any major games coming in the next few months that could possibly swing the momentum.

“I think Switch should have a real nice June, and then a big boost with Pokemon,” said Mat Piscatella, analyst for the NPD Group, speaking to GamingBolt. “PS4 should continue to trend well, but Xbox One could take a month or two, especially as we get into holiday. The big unknowns are pricing and promotional strategies for Q4, which can swing shares a bit. Regardless, I do expect [a] good year for all three to continue.”

Piscatella also talked about how the US market isn’t zero sum, and how data suggests that the success of one console doesn’t seem to come at the expense of the others.

“I think the market is a bit less directly competitive than most think. Cross-ownership rates are high, shows me that these boxes are meeting different player wants and needs. I don’t think the market is zero sum.”

It seems like all three consoles are doing well, and will continue to for the coming year- though, given the various variables at play in the coming months, it will certainly be interesting to see how the market trends going forward.

In a new report on the gaming market released by US market research firm Nielsen, the company has revealed that the Xbox One X enjoys much higher general awareness in the United States than the PS4 Pro or the Nintendo Switch (although not as high as the original PS4)- this owes itself to a nearly triple boost in the amount of people aware of the machine over last year, while the Switch got a double boost.

Overall, 86% of the people surveyed, who included general population/teens/adults aged 13+, with 2,000+ interviews among 50% male/50% female sample, with the data weighed against data from the U.S. Census to ensure accurate representation per U.S. demographics, profess to awareness of the current generation consoles- up from 82% last year.

That said, the Xbox One X’s higher awareness doesn’t necessarily translate to higher sales- the intent to purchase the Xbox One X is lower than the intent to purchase a PS4 or a Switch, which likely has to do with the console’s incredibly high price compared to the competition. Maybe, going forward, a price drop for the Xbox One X is something that Microsoft can look into.

The Nintendo Switch has set yet another record- the hybrid console, which has been selling at an unprecedented pace, in spite of being plagued by shortages for the early part of its life cycle, has been setting and breaking sales records around the world. Now, it’s set another one.

The NPD Group indicated yesterday that the Switch was, over the first year of its life, the highest selling home console ever in history in the United States. Yes, that means it was higher selling in that first year than the PS4, and that it was higher selling than the Wii. For those who have been expecting sales of the system to drop off any time soon, I think it is time to admit that the Switch is here to stay.

Sales for the Switch should continue at a steady clip thanks to a stacked lineup in the coming months, as well as the release of Labo, which could expand the Switch’s appeal to a broader market. Its performance in the coming months will be interesting to observe.