What just happened? Sony's PlayStation 5 recently became the first console to outsell Nintendo's Switch handheld, snapping an impressive streak of 33 months as the hardware sales leader. The victory was short lived, however, as Nintendo managed to recapture the crown in October thanks in part to the launch of the new OLED Switch.
The NPD Group's Mat Piscatella said the Switch was the best-selling hardware platform for the month of October, both in terms of units sold and dollars generated. Year-to-date, the PlayStation 5 remains the revenue leader, with the Switch holding firm as the annual unit leader.
Nintendo said it sold 711,000 Switch consoles in the US in October, 314,000 of which were the new OLED model. "We see this as a strong start for the Nintendo Switch OLED model and a very strong indicator of the performance we can expect as we go into the holiday season," Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser told The Verge.
October was a solid month for hardware makers as a whole. According to Piscatella, video game hardware dollar sales were up 82 percent compared to October 2020, totaling $472 million. Year-to-date, hardware spending is up 53 percent compared to the same period a year earlier.
It's been exactly one year since Sony and Microsoft launched their latest-gen consoles, but thanks to ongoing component shortages, inventory issues and the dreaded scalper problem, it certainly doesn't feel like year one is already in the books.
On the software side, Far Cry 6 was the top game in October followed by Back 4 Blood and Metroid Dread. Nintendo's new Metroid game was also the number one game on the Switch for October, and achieved the highest launch month sales of any Metroid game in tracked history.