As every month, NPD Group brings us the sales results of the video game market in the United States and this list is special because apart from revealing what happened in December, it includes the definitive numbers that allow defining the best-selling gaming console of 2018, which is none other than Nintendo Switch.
A few minutes ago, Mat Piscatella, NPD Group analyst, revealed the sales data of the consoles sector in the US corresponding to last December and the whole year of 2018. In that sense, there is good news for the sale of hardware in 2018, because the sales in dollars grew 8% with respect to 2017, which translates into $5.1 billion; likewise, the performance in December of last year showed another face and the numbers of the month reflect a fall of 8% with respect to December of 2017, which translates into sales of $1.6 billion. However, the balance of the year ends up being very positive for the companies that manufacture consoles, as sales in dollars and units reached the maximum established in 2009, which translated into very good hardware sales for Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.
With the support of those results, NPD Group revealed that Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console of December 2018 and, best of all, that it was the best-selling console of the whole year 2018 in the US, ending the hegemony of PlayStation 4 in that market. According to information from Piscatella, Nintendo’s hybrid console closed another great year by becoming the hardware with the highest sales, both in units and dollars and reached the numbers registered by PS4 in 2015.
Likewise, Switch’s excellent sales performance was enough for the hybrid console to be the one with the highest dollar sales generated in December 2018, matching the achievements of Nintendo Wii in December 2009 and becoming the console with the largest unit sold since December 2010.
So, it is clear that Nintendo can start celebrating because it has had another dream year in the most important markets, reaffirming the popularity of Switch and confirming that, for the second year, it was the most desired console in North American territory at the time of sale.
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