In North America, it’s impossible to declare a specific winner, as Sony’s console came out on top in one aspect and Nintendo’s in another.

NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella said that in one of the most critical regions of the gaming industry, the Nintendo Switch sold the most, but the PlayStation 5 came out on top in terms of money made. With Sony taking the top spot in both categories in October and November, it was reasonable to think that Nintendo would be dethroned by the end of the year (especially as Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan didn’t have the guts to raise the price of both PlayStation 5 models in the US), but that didn’t happen as the Switch retook the top spot in terms of sales.

The gaming industry did slow, with $56.6 billion spent on games, accessories, and hardware in the region. Hardware performance strengthened as Sony got more of the PlayStation 5 and Microsoft got more of the Xbox Series into stores, and more money flowed in from subscriptions. This balance was dragged down by negative game sales performance because there were few big-hitting AAA games (we wrote about the annual top 10 yesterday; unfortunately, the boring tradition hasn’t changed), and the economic situation was unfavorable.

In 2023, the Nintendo Switch’s sail will slowly run out of steam, but The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom could be the last killer app on the platform (remember: in March, the big N’s hardware will be six years old! ), but the Xbox Series can also look forward to Starfield and Redfall, while the PlayStation 5 will have Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, for example (and suddenly we can’t think of anything else but PlayStation VR2, so this could be a bit of a slow year from Sony…).

Of course, it could all be thoroughly screwed up by a recession.

Source: WCCFTech