NPD report finds Xbox 360 'dominated' 2012 console sales, 890,000 Wii Us sold in the US so far
It's a trend that's been clear for some time now, but NPD's year-end report out today has confirmed that the Xbox 360 is the clear winner in US console sales for 2012, with 1.4 million units sold in December alone keeping it in what's described as a "dominant" position. As for this year's big new console, the Wii U, the NPD Group reports that it's sold nearly 890,000 units in the US after its first 41 days on the market, with 460,000 sold in December (actually less than the 475,000 of the original Wii). Nintendo found a slightly different spin to put on that, though, noting that the Wii U has generated $30 million more than the original Wii at the same point in its lifecycle, which sold more units but also cost less. When it comes to Nintendo's other consoles, the 3DS was on top with sales of 1.25 million in December, while the standard DS moved 470,000 units.
On the whole, however, 2012 saw a fairly significant decline in video game sales compared to the previous year, with overall hardware sales dropping 27 percent to an estimated $4.04 billion for the year. NPD didn't have specific sales figures for Sony, but an IDC report out yesterday found that the PlayStation 3 managed to pull ahead of the Xbox 360 on a worldwide basis in December, with a total of 77 million consoles shipped since its introduction compared to 76 million Xbox 360s.
