September NPD: PlayStation 4 kept its grip on US sales

NPD’s September numbers landed with a mixed picture for the console market: hardware spending fell 27% year over year to $313.5 million — but under that headline, each manufacturer had a story it liked.

Nintendo, per usual, shared actual numbers. Wii U sales were up 110% over the previous month — roughly 90,000 units by estimate — and the 3DS grew 24% against the same month the year before, landing near 130,000 units. A good month, by the Wii U’s standards.

Sony stayed vague but triumphant: the PlayStation 4 was again the best-selling console of the month in the US, with record revenue on the PlayStation Store. No hard figures, and no word on the struggling PlayStation Vita.

Microsoft kept it vaguer still — “solid growth” year over year for Xbox One, nothing concrete.

Read between the non-answers and the picture was clear: the PS4 held the throne, and everyone else was competing for second. That race ran for the rest of the generation — the PlayStation 4 never really gave the lead back.