The NPD Group has revealed its video game hardware and software sales for the United States in August 2021. As noted on ResetEra, dollar sales on hardware hit $329 million, which is up by 45 percent compared to August 2020 and marks the highest total for the month since 2008 (which hit $395 million). In terms of unit sales, the Nintendo Switch was the best-selling platform for the month and year-to-date.
However, in terms of dollar sales, the PlayStation 5 topped both, primarily due to its higher price point compared to the Switch. It’s still the fastest selling platform in PlayStation’s history despite being available for just 10 months, which is an achievement unto itself. Overall year-to-date consumer spending was up by seven percent over August 2020, hitting $4.4 billion with hardware spending accounting for $3 billion.
Sony is well on its way to selling 14.8 million PS5 units in the next financial year but the rest of the year should be big for Nintendo as well. That’s because the Switch OLED is out on October 8th (alongside Metroid Dread) and costs $50 more over the base model. We’ll see how well it performs in the coming days so stay tuned.