Nintendo Switch dominates PlayStation 4 and Xbox One

Nintendo Switch sales are off the charts. The system was the best-selling gaming console in the United States in December and for all of 2018, according to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group. The Switch sold well throughout the year, but the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate gave it a massive boost to close out the last month.The hybrid home/handheld system outsold the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. But it didn’t just outsell them, it had the best December of any console this generation.“Nintendo Switch generated the highest December-month hardware dollar sales for a single platform since the Nintendo Wii in December 2009,” NPD analyst Mat Piscatella said. “And it achieved the highest December unit sales for a single platform since December 2010.”And it’s clear that Super Smash Bros. was one of the driving forces behind those hardware sales. The Nintendo fighter had the best launch month of any console exclusive since NPD began tracking sales in the ’90s. That puts it ahead of Marvel’s Spider-Man and, historically, Xbox 360’s Halo: Reach. But the rest of the Switch library also contributed to the system’s success because Nintendo had seven of the top 20 best-selling releases of December.