Nintendo, Sony Dominated Easily During Cyber Monday

As if their dominance over Black Friday weekend wasn’t enough, now it appears that both Nintendo and Sony have taken over this year’s Cyber Monday as well.

Adobe recently revealed a report indicating that the selling day led to $6.59 billion in overall sales, and leading the charge for that day was none other than the Nintendo Switch, which also ruled Black Friday with the company’s top five list. Other best-sellers included PJ Masks, Hatchimals and Colleggtibles, as well as the Google Chromecast and Roku.

As for best-selling games, Super Mario Odyssey ruled the charts as well, although Assassin’s Creed Origins and Call of Duty: WWII did great also.

Although official sales numbers have yet to be reported by the NPD Group, some analysts have already boasted a nice turnaround for Nintendo from the sales period.

Speaking with GamesIndustry International, IDC research director Lewis Ward said, “My preliminary total home console hardware shipment total in North America (US + Canada) in 2017 is coming in close to 15 million bundles, up nearly 30% compared to 2016’s total of about 11.6 million bundles shipped. Nearly all of this increase is due to Switch: Nintendo shipped less than 400,000 Wii U bundles last year in North America. This year alone, Switch will ship over 5.2 million in the region. That’s an insane turnaround.

“What I can say is that we shouldn’t lose the forest for the trees: The biggest story in the console space in 2017 is that Nintendo’s back with a vengeance. My research does imply that PS4 will nevertheless outsell Xbox One overall in North America in 4Q17 and for 2017 as a whole. I’m also expecting 4Q17 hardware bundle shipments to be up about 25% compared to 4Q16 in North America, and as I said, the big spike here is due to Nintendo’s rebound.”

Surprisingly enough, not much has been said on the Xbox One X front with the sales weekend. However, DFC Intelligence’s David Cole noted, “I think overall there is an issue of limited demand for a high-end game system. The Xbox One X is now selling to the people who have a lot of money and want the latest and greatest but that audience will dry out quickly. The PS4 overall is doing well but the PS4 Pro has underperformed.

“So I think Black Friday shows that the audience for fancy graphics is limited and if you offer something new and unique like the Switch does, consumers will go for it.”

The Switch should continue to do quite well in 2018, especially with the games that Nintendo no doubt has lined up for the system. We’ll see what it has to announce soon enough.