The PS5 has now outpaced the sales of the PS4 in the same time period by seven percent. But, at the same time, Xbox Series has fallen behind the sales of Xbox One by 18 percent. This is, of course, talking specifically about sales in the United States, and not worldwide.
That’s all according to Matt Piscatella, executive director at video game industry analyst Circana, which was formerly known as the NPD Group. In a lengthy thread on BlueSky, Piscatella summed up the company’s latest montly report on the game industry, including console sales, game sales, and the performance of the industry as a whole.
“Through each console’s first 50 months in the US market (life to date ending Dec 2024 for both XBS and PS5), PS5 lifetime unit sales are 7% ahead of PS4’s pace, while Xbox Series trails Xbox One by 18%. Through 38 months in the US (through Dec 2023), PS5 led PS4 by 6% while XBS trailed XBO by 13%,” said Piscatella.
As of November 2024, Sony announced that the PS5 has sold 65.5 million units. For comparison, the lifetime sales of the PS4 sit around roughly 117 million. Unfortunately, Xbox doesn’t share console sales figures, but a report from the Wall Street Journal, also in November 2024, claimed that Xbox Series had sold roughly half of the PS5’s numbers.
Despite that little bump in sales for PS5, though, spending in general for video games has been down. Piscatella says December video game hardware spending dropped 29% to $1.1B. Compared to 2023, both PS5 and Xbox Series hardware dropped by a whopping 38%, and annual spending on hardware dropped 25% lower than 2023. Piscatella also attributes this drop to the Nintendo Switch being in its final year, with users awaiting the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2. Spending on video games, in general, dropped 1.1% compared to 2023, to $58.7B.
Apart from all those console stats, Piscatella has a ton of other details on software sales and users. The best-selling games of 2024, in order, were Call of Duty Blacks Ops 6, EA Sports College Football 25, Helldivers 2, and Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero squeaking in at 4th. The best-selling premium game on Nintendo platforms was Super Mario Party Jamboree.
Head over to Piscatella’s full thread if you want to see even more.
