As the 'next gen' label evolves to 'new gen' and adoption of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox steadily trend upward, Sony's latest console continues to hold its lead over its rival from Microsoft.
But Sony has little time to celebrate as the Wii U is finally starting to release highly anticipated games and the PC gaming market keeps expanding by billions each year.
Up 24 percent from June 2013, gamers were said to have spent $736.4 million on consoles and accessories in June 2014. However, software trailed off a bit.
The latest report on video game hardware and software sales comes from The NDP Group, a market research and advisory firm. The report states video game sales for June 2014 stood at $286.8 million, down 3 percent from the previous June, but hardware sales of PS4s and Xbox Ones have outpaced their predecessor by 80 percent, according to Liam Callahan of The NPD Group.
"While the new hardware launches were a major factor in overall new physical video-game growth, the start of this year-over-year growth began in September 2013, two months before the November 2013 launches of Xbox One and PS4," said Callahan. "September and October 2013 year-over-year growth for overall new physical video-game sales were driven by software increases."
While hard numbers haven't been available and despite Microsoft's claims that its Xbox One sales doubled in June 2014, Sony said its PlayStation 4 was the best selling console in June 2014.
With Wii U's year-to-year sales up by 233 percent in June 2014, Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America executive vice president of sales and marketing, praised his company's system-seller and was optimistic that the game would move consoles for a long time.
"These results reinforce the power of the Mario Kart franchise and speak to a bright future for the Wii U platform," Moffitt said. "History has shown that Mario Kart games tend to have an extremely long tail. We fully expect Mario Kart 8 to continue to drive momentum for our hardware and software business through the holidays and into the foreseeable future."
While the latest consoles have been making strides in establishing a large install base, PC gamers continued to invest billions into hardware upgrades. In a separate report, Jon Peddie Research valued the market for PC gaming hardware at $21.5 billion and predicted that it would grow to $23 billion by 2017.
Ted Pollak, senior analyst as Jon Peddie Research, said PC gamers were investing more into mid-range and high-end PCs. While casual console gamers and individuals using low-end PCs were shifting to mobile gaming, Pollak said the majority of PC gamers were looking to build or maintain ergonomic desktop environments that offer the best gaming experience and tackle tasks unrelated to video games.
