June 2021 NPD: Xbox and Switch outperform the competition

Hardware sales had a huge month in the United States in June. Consumers bought $ 401 million in new consoles, an increase of 112% from the same period in 2020, according to industry monitoring company The NPD Group. Much of this stems from the increased interest in the new generation of consoles. And June also got help from a huge influx of Xbox Series X / S devices right after the E3 industry show.

“Video game hardware dollar sales in June jumped 112% from June 2020 to $ 401 million,” said NPD analyst Mat Piscatella. “This is the highest total reached in a month of June since $ 617 million in 2008.”

For the year so far, 2021 easily overtakes 2020, which was expected to build on aging Xbox One and PlayStation 4 hardware platforms.

“Year-to-date consumer spending on computer hardware is up 45% from the first half of 2020, reaching $ 2.3 billion,” Piscatella said.

The Xbox Series X / S and Nintendo Switch came out on top… depending on how you count.

“The Xbox Series X / S was the best-selling hardware platform in terms of dollar sales for the month of June, while Nintendo Switch led in unit sales,” said Piscatella.

It was the best June on record for the Xbox brand, in terms of console sales.

“June dollar sales of Xbox consoles set a new record for the Xbox platform, surpassing the previous record for June 2011,” said Piscatella.

For 2021 as a whole, the Switch is still dominant.

“Nintendo Switch was the best-selling hardware platform in the first half of 2021 in terms of dollar and unit sales,” Piscatella said.

And the limited supply PlayStation 5 continues to set its own records.

“PlayStation 5 remains the best-selling single-unit console hardware platform in US history for eight-month lifetime sales in the market, excluding laptops,” said Piscatella.