A report by research firm NPD Group on the video game industry for the month of May revealed that gamers spent a total of $586 million on new video game hardware and software.
The figure represents a 52 percent increase year over year compared to the reported $387 million in total spending in May 2013.
Of the total amount, $187 million is from the sales of video game hardware, which is a 95 percent jump from the $96 million in reported hardware sales in the same month last year.
While the huge increase in hardware purchases is most likely driven by the introduction of Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One into the market, the two consoles aren't the only ones that contributed to the increase.
"While much of May 2014's hardware growth was due to Xbox One and PS4, there was also year-over-year growth for the Wii U, and PS Vita," said Liam Callahan of the NPD Group.
The NPD Group also reported that the PlayStation 4 beat the Xbox One in console sales for the fifth straight month. The Xbox One is hoping to be able to catch up to the PlayStation 4's sales with Microsoft's decision to remove the Kinect motion sensor from the standard Xbox One bundle to lower the price to $399, at par with the price of the PlayStation 4.
Nintendo, meanwhile, sees good news in the NPD Group report. Sales for the Wii U increased 85% compared to April and likewise increased 90% compared to May of last year. The success can be attributed to the release of the highly anticipated Mario Kart 8, which sold 1.2 million copies worldwide on its first weekend.
Nintendo's portable 3DS is also notable, being second-best in sales among all the systems for the month.
In terms of software, gamers purchased new physical games worth $274 million, which is an increase of 20 percent from $227.9 million last month and an increase of 57 percent compared to $175 million in May of last year. Software purchases rebounded after declining for six months, spurred by the success of the aforementioned Mario Kart 8 along with the release of Watch Dogs, Wolfenstein: The New Order, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Kirby: Triple Deluxe.
In addition to the reported $586 million for new sales, the NPD Group reported $124 million in sales for other physical formats such as used games and rentals and sales for digital games amounting to $787 million. All in all, total sales in the video game industry for the month of May is $1.46 billion.
