In the United States, the PlayStation 5 is outperforming its predecessor, the PS4, in terms of sales trajectory, while the Xbox Series consoles are lagging behind the Xbox One.

This insight comes from Matt Piscatella, Executive Director and Video Game Industry Analyst at Circana (formerly the NPD Group), summarizing the latest US sales data.

Conversely, the Xbox Series consoles are trailing the Xbox One, which itself was already behind the PS4, indicating a widening gap between the console families.

In a post on Bluesky, Piscatella stated, "In the U.S. market, through 50 months in market (cumulative sales as of December 2024 for both Xbox Series and PS5), PS5 cumulative sales are 7% faster than PS4’s pace through the same time period, while Xbox Series are pacing 18% behind Xbox One."

He added, "Through 38 months in market (as of December 2023), PS5 was pacing 6% ahead of PS4, while Xbox Series was pacing 13% behind Xbox One."

In August, Sony reported that it had sold 61 million PS5 units. While Microsoft doesn't publicly disclose hardware sales figures, a Wall Street Journal report from September suggested that Xbox Series sales were approximately half of the PS5's at the time.

Piscatella also reported that video game hardware spending declined 29% in December, dropping to $1.1 billion.

"PS5 hardware spending declined 18% when compared to December 2023, while Xbox Series and Switch each declined 38%. Annual spending on video game hardware was 25% lower than 2023, at $4.9B."

Piscatella attributed part of the hardware sales decline to the Nintendo Switch entering the latter stages of its lifecycle, with Nintendo set to launch its successor, the Switch 2, this year.

Circana's data also revealed that overall US spending on video games declined by 1.1% in 2024 compared to 2023.

This was primarily driven by the 25% decline in video game hardware spending, while spending on game content (software, DLC, and subscription services) and accessories saw increases of 2% and 6%, respectively.