It's that time of the months again, and NPD announced its figures for the US market in the month of March, by way of Analyst Mat Piscatella.

We learn that PS4 was the best selling console of the month, and remains the best selling hardware year-to-date.

Hardware spending declined 32% year-on-year (understandably, since March is the month the Switch launched). This year's total was 331  million dollars with gains for Xbox One and an inevitable decline for Switch.

This is the second month in a row that the PS4 tops hardware sales, after the Switch won January.

For software, Far Cry 5 was at the top of the chart, and it also became the best-selling title of 2018. It also set a record for the debut month for the Far Cry franchise, almost doubling sales of the previous record-holder, Far Cry 3. 

Interestingly, Sea of Thieves was the second best-selling game, and is the 8th best-selling game of the year. It had the highest launch month sales for any game by Rare since 1995 (when NPD started tracking games).

Dollar sales for software were 613 million dollars, with a 10% decrease year-on-year. Xbox One, Switch, and PC software spending was up, while PS4 and portable software spending was down.

Piscatella also mentioned that according to his view on the data subscription services like Game Pass are actually helping sales, and aren't cannibalizing them in any way.

If you're interested in grabbing this month's winner Far Cry 5, you can do so on Amazon.


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