Back when it was first released, the idea of the PlayStation 4 falling from the top of the sales charts just didn't seem possible. For months, Sony's machine held a commanding lead - those numbers are the reason that, when compared with its competition, the PlayStation 4 is the current leader of the console war.

However, the month-to-month competition started to change when Microsoft announced that it would offer an Xbox One without a Kinect sensor. The $100 price drop led to a huge boost in sales - while the PS4 is still the clear overall winner, the Xbox One definitely managed to close the gap quite a bit, and even managed to outsell Sony for a number of months during an extremely profitable holiday season.

That being said, you'd never guess that from the sales numbers of May 2015. Sony clearly dominated the month, and not just in hardware sales: the vast majority of games bought in May were for the PlayStation 4, even if there was a version available on Microsoft's console.

While Microsoft's console managed to outsell its competition back in April, the PlayStation 4 was the clear winner in May. In terms of console sales, May was exactly what gamers have come to expect: the PlayStation 4 was the clear winner, the Xbox One was back in second place, and the Wii U is still the obvious underdog.

Overall, May 2015's sales numbers weren't quite as strong as last year's. Granted, that's likely due to May 2014's huge lineup of triple-A games (Watch Dogs and Mario Kart 8 come to mind), but in general, the industry fell into something of a slump last month.

That's not to say that there weren't any big releases in May: despite only having two weeks' worth of sales, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt managed to sell 4 million units and absolutely dominated the charts. Another big surprise was Nintendo's own Splatoon (via Venture Beat), as it managed to crack the top 10 - which, at this point, is a huge win for Nintendo.

It should be noted that the NPD Reports only count physical purchases, and anything that's downloaded won't be counted. It doesn't matter much when it comes to consoles (seeing as you can't download a PS4), but it can make a huge difference when it comes to individual titles. For example: how many people bought The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt via Steam? If there's already 4 million physical copies being sold, you can bet that Valve's platform also sold millions of digital copies.

Regardless, it looks like May was another big win for Sony. With E3 2015 just around the corner, you can be sure that the publisher is going to make a big deal out of its numbers - even if fans are more intersted in what the PS4's holiday lineup will look like.


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