PlayStation 4 Beats Xbox One Again in NPD's Monthly Sales Report

U.S. retail sales of video-game related products rose 2% from a year ago to $1.1 billion in September, according to researcher NPD Group. Winning the console wars for the month once again was Sony's PlayStation 4, despite a prediction from Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter that Xbox One might finally take the title due to a free game promotion offered by Microsoft. Hardware sales rose 136% to $432.7 million year-over-year, with Xbox One and PS4 combined representing 85% of overall hardware sales during the month. The top selling title of the month was Activision Blizzard's Destiny, which is also the most successful launch of the year so far. Despite that, total software sales fell 36% to $481.2 million from September 2013.