PS5 reportedly has best launch month for any console in US history

[Cal Jeffrey]

Bottom line: We are nearing the end of the holiday shopping season, but there is sure to be a last-minute push as consumers rush to fill stockings and adorn their trees with gifts. It may have been an atypical year, but it looks like the games industry is set to end 2020 on a record high.

We are not quite through the holiday season yet, but the PlayStation 5 is already breaking launch month sales records in the US. NPD Group reports that although the Nintendo Switch moved more units in November, the PlayStation 5, which launched two weeks into the month in the US, had the highest dollar sales.

In terms of newly launched hardware, the PS5 also beat the Xbox Series X|S in sales. In fact, it broke the record for the best unit and dollars sales in a console's launch month in the history of the US—a record previously held by the PlayStation 4. However, launch month sales are not the end of the war.

US NPD HW - PlayStation 5 achieved the highest launch month unit and dollar sales for a video game hardware platform in U.S. history. The records were previously held by the PlayStation 4, which debuted in November 2013.

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) December 11, 2020

"Launch month sales of a new console have no correlation to long-term performance, so I don't think the strong launch performance says much more than Sony was confident enough to make the units available for sale that would reach the record," NDP's lead gaming analyst Mat Piscatella told GameDaily. "I am certainly optimistic for the long-term prospects for both new gen consoles, but I don't take anything more away from the launch month sales than that's the number of units that were produced and distributed."

November also set a new record in consumer spending with over $1.4 billion in video game hardware sales recorded—up 58 percent over November 2019. The 2020 market has also seen a 34 percent increase in gaming gear, with gamers doling out over $4 billion since January 1.

Piscatella noted that the Nintendo Switch is performing exceptionally well. It has been the best-selling gaming hardware by units moved for 24 straight months.

"[The Switch]is one of the best-performing consoles in US history. Nintendo has established Switch as a device that is complementary and additive to the market, and one that is more cooperative than in direct competition with PlayStation and Xbox. This can be seen in the very high cross-ownership rates we see between owners of Switch and those who also own a PS4 and/or Xbox One."

The top five best-selling games for November were Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Madden NFL 21, and NBA 2021. CoD has also been the top-selling game of the year. "This is the 13th consecutive year a Call of Duty game has ranked as the best-selling game of its release month," tweeted Piscatella. "Assassin's Creed: Valhalla achieved the highest launch month sales for an Assassin's Creed franchise title since Assassin's Creed III in 2012.

Image credit: Girts Ragelis

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https://www.techspot.com/news/87951-ps5-reportedly-has-best-launch-month-any-console.html

 

[scavengerspc]

Then big kudos goes to Sony. At the very least it's obvious they had more consoles ready. Props.

 

[brucek]

What were the unit sales numbers?

 

[Vulcanproject]

And it has been stock constrained to boot. If Sony had more machines to sell they would have. The numbers could have been huge. They are probably wishing they had another couple million units on hand to sell.

 

[texasrattler]

There is no console war. Article after article, yet there isnt even one. For one, MS hasnt cared about units sold in 2 generations now. Sony can have all the accolades, MS enjoys making money and a lot of it. Sony has a console to sell, MS has a tons of services which they can sell and do.

 

[CBTex]

There is no console war. Article after article, yet there isnt even one. For one, MS hasnt cared about units sold in 2 generations now. Sony can have all the accolades, MS enjoys making money and a lot of it. Sony has a console to sell, MS has a tons of services which they can sell and do.

The whole concept of a console "war" is dead. Wars have winners and losers. The video game market has grown large enough to support multiple system simultaneously. The PS5 and XSX will both be successful. And the Switch is a money printer for Nintendo.

 

[Lounds]

The whole concept of a console "war" is dead. Wars have winners and losers. The video game market has grown large enough to support multiple system simultaneously. The PS5 and XSX will both be successful. And the Switch is a money printer for Nintendo.

Until cloud gaming takes off and we have a Netflix of gaming, which so far XCloud with game pass seems promising and I'm a PC/PS/Switch gamer.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Most Scalped Console in history record

 

[terzaerian]

The whole concept of a console "war" is dead. Wars have winners and losers. The video game market has grown large enough to support multiple system simultaneously. The PS5 and XSX will both be successful. And the Switch is a money printer for Nintendo.

If the "console war" is dead it's because the PC has made the point moot.

Until cloud gaming takes off and we have a Netflix of gaming, which so far XCloud with game pass seems promising and I'm a PC/PS/Switch gamer.

Cloud gaming needs to go jump off a cliff. I am not fine with owning nothing and renting everything.

 

[Eldritch]

Until cloud gaming takes off and we have a Netflix of gaming, which so far XCloud with game pass seems promising and I'm a PC/PS/Switch gamer.

Netflix of gaming.... Damn, you got me worried. Netflix doesn't have many shows I like and most good movies are missing. I tried watching some anime which had been translated but Netflix serves only untranslated versions as they are cheaper and no, it's not isolated event but happens with dozens of titles.

And one more thing, Yes, cloud gaming is future. No doubt about it. But it's far away future (4+ years) unless you live near their servers. If you disagree then may I suggest actually trying the cloud gaming and reporting back with your blood pressure readings.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Netflix of gaming.... Damn, you got me worried. Netflix doesn't have many shows I like and most good movies are missing. I tried watching some anime which had been translated but Netflix serves only untranslated versions as they are cheaper and no, it's not isolated event but happens with dozens of titles.

And one more thing, Yes, cloud gaming is future. No doubt about it. But it's far away future (4+ years) unless you live near their servers. If you disagree then may I suggest actually trying the cloud gaming and reporting back with your blood pressure readings.

10 years ago game streaming services were only a few years away. Remember OnLive?

Cloud gaming "services' will never work, because at best, with the best fiber internet, you STILL have latency due to simple physics, latency that will never be removed because, again, physics. Everyone who argues "but muh bandwidth" is missing the bigger picture here. Lag, even minor lag, is infuriating, and the repeated failures of cloud services to perform well shows this. Even with google fiber, google stadia is garbage at best and totally unplayable at worst, with over a second of input lag. Input lag is WAY worse then framerate lag.

Netflix of gaming. Hell no. It's bad enough geforce now removes content and gives you limited play time, going the netflix route of ever incresing prices and good content being removed while garbage gets shoveled in to justify the price.....has nobody actually paid attention to the streaming wars? Streaming has become a bloated complicated mess of high prices and segmented content, and we want that for GAMES?

Absolute insanity.

 

[No Longer Human]

Absolute insanity.

I imagine things like this are why you are @Theinsanegamer and why I too, after consideriing all of these things am "No Longer Human"

 

[Lounds]

Netflix of gaming.... Damn, you got me worried. Netflix doesn't have many shows I like and most good movies are missing. I tried watching some anime which had been translated but Netflix serves only untranslated versions as they are cheaper and no, it's not isolated event but happens with dozens of titles.

And one more thing, Yes, cloud gaming is future. No doubt about it. But it's far away future (4+ years) unless you live near their servers. If you disagree then may I suggest actually trying the cloud gaming and reporting back with your blood pressure readings.

I've tried it on Geforce now and Xcloud, personally Xcloud had better latency but worse resolution and visual quality but Geforce Now looked the closest to a locally rendered image but lacked the latency needed for smooth gameplay for multiplayer. Not tried Google stadia but for me I think it's just not fit for purpose yet with my country's infrastructure (UK).

 

[defaultluser]

There is no console war. Article after article, yet there isnt even one. For one, MS hasnt cared about units sold in 2 generations now. Sony can have all the accolades, MS enjoys making money and a lot of it. Sony has a console to sell, MS has a tons of services which they can sell and do.

They still have to absorb those costs of development.

The original Xbox One barely paid for itself.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insert...ft-has-lost-400m-on-xbox-one/?sh=5ed64ca95666

Then they lost money on the overpowered, late-released mid-life-upgrade One X ( every one sold cost Microsoft money, and building a new GPU with a massive 384-bit bus wasn't taking the easy way out like PS4 Pro!)

https://www.polygon.com/e3/2017/6/14/15804708/xbox-one-x-not-making-money

You can only make-up so much money having twice-as-many paying live subscribers. They also typically sell less than half -as-many copies of third-party games (less purchases = less revenue) .

They bury the Xbox losses deep inside layers of revenue, by only highlighting the parts that are doing well

 

[Nargg]

Up over last year? Really? There was no new hardware last year. Sony is really twisting things up a bit too much.

 

[Nargg]

They still have to absorb those costs of development.

The original Xbox One barely paid for itself.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insert...ft-has-lost-400m-on-xbox-one/?sh=5ed64ca95666

Then they lost money on the overpowered, late-released mid-life-upgrade One X ( every one sold cost Microsoft money, and building a new GPU with a massive 384-bit bus wasn't taking the easy way out like PS4 Pro!)

https://www.polygon.com/e3/2017/6/14/15804708/xbox-one-x-not-making-money

You can only make-up so much money having twice-as-many paying live subscribers. They also typically sell less than half -as-many copies of third-party games (less purchases = less revenue) .

They bury the Xbox losses deep inside layers of revenue, by only highlighting the parts that are doing well

Those links are ancient. And the units have paid for themselves plenty of times over by now. Time to move on from that past news.