PS4 Was the Best-Selling Console in December and All of 2015 in US

The NPD Group has released its monthly report for December tracking new, physical sales in the US. Coinciding with that, Sony has released a statement claiming that the PS4 was the best-selling console in the US during both December and the entirety of 2015.

"As we reflect on an amazing year, we want to thank fans and partners for making PlayStation 4 the top selling console in December and in 2015," a Sony spokesperson said in a statement shared with GameSpot. "PS4 also had the strongest third-party software sales in 2015 in the US, according to NPD."

Sony didn't share US-specific sales figures for the month or the year, instead repeating the worldwide 35.9 million figure it recently shared. It did say that during the "holiday season" 5.7 million PS4s and 35 million PS4 games were sold worldwide. That period covers November 22 through January 2 in North America, Latin America, and Europe, and November 23 through January 3 in Japan and Asia. PS4 was the top-selling system in November, too.

Nintendo's statement offered no information on the hardware front, instead highlighting that Super Mario Maker passed the one million unit mark in US sales during December. It's the sixth game to sell at least one million copies on Wii U in the US.

Corporate VP of Xbox marketing, Mike Nichols, wrote in a statement: "Thanks to our fans, continued support for the most critically-acclaimed holiday lineup of exclusives in Xbox history made December 2015 the best month yet for Xbox Live global engagement and Xbox One sales in the US. The total number of hours spent gaming on Xbox One worldwide nearly doubled compared to December 2014 and Xbox One exclusive game sales in the U.S. between July and December 2015 were up 61 percent compared to the same period in 2014. Revenue from Xbox Store’s Countdown, the biggest Xbox Store sale ever, broke records with 69 percent growth year-over-year when compared to results from last year’s sale. Xbox One is the best place for gamers and the only console that has all top 10 best-selling titles of this generation that launched in 2015. With an incredible catalog of first-party and third-party games on Xbox One and available through Xbox One Backward Compatibility, 2015 was a tremendous year for gamers, and we're looking forward to making 2016 an even better one."

NPD analyst Liam Callahan notes that combined sales of the Xbox One and PS4 are higher than that of the PS3 and Xbox 360 through 26 months. Sales figures weren't shared, but they are said to be 47 percent higher.

Despite this, hardware sales were down six percent during December to $1.24 billion from $1.31 billion in December 2014. For the full year, they were down four percent to $4.86 billion from $5.07 billion. That's largely due to a decline in older hardware and portables, as sales of the current generation of consoles were up by four percent during December and two percent during the year.

Both Xbox One and PS4 had their best-ever single months in December, and the year as a whole was the best for each console. The Wii U's performance wasn't discussed at all, but when combining sales for all three platforms, December was the trio's top month ever, topping November 2015's record.

On the software side, Call of Duty: Black Ops III came out on top during both December and the full year.