January 2015 NPD: PS4 Beats Xbox One, Dying Light Sets a Sales Record

January 2015 NPD: PS4 Beats Xbox One, Dying Light Sets a Record

February 12, 2015

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After the Xbox One led in the previous two months, the PlayStation 4 was back on top in January 2015, the NPD has confirmed.

Sony sent this statement to Games Beat about their latest victory:

PlayStation 4 was the top selling console in January, it and remains the cumulative leader in the U.S., according to NPD data. Since launch in November 2013, 18.5 million PS4 units and 81.8 million software units have been sold through to consumers worldwide.

Looking at sales, the industry as a whole was at $625.7 million in the US at retail during January 2015, which is a drop of 5% compared to January 2014. A big reason for this was hardware, as it went from $239.6 million in 2014, to $185.5 million 2015.

NPD analyst Liam Callahan talked about hardware sales in January:

Hardware sales declined by 23 percent as sales cooled off after the holiday season. Eighth generation console hardware sales were down by 22 percent while seventh generation console hardware sales decreased by 35 percent.

Thanks to Dying Light and the continued strength of holiday titles, software sales were up in January, with Callahan explaining just how successful Dying Light was:

In January 2015, Dying Light had the highest first month of sales for new IP in the survival-horror genre, exceeding the previous record, The Evil Within, which launched in October 2014.

Here’s the top 10 selling games in January 2015, which totals retail sales across all systems and includes Collectors Editions, GOTY Editions, and bundles, but not those bundled with hardware (sales by platform are ranked in brackets from highest-selling to least-selling):