Customers Are Spending Lots Across the Entire Gaming Industry
The NPD Group recently released its latest sales report, and it shows that gamers continue to raise the bar in terms of spending. According to the NPD Group, the video games market in the third quarter (July to September) was worth $11.2 billion in 2020 alone, showing a 24% increase in consumer spending over 2019. This represents an increase in spending across the whole market, with hardware and accessories leading the boost. The new hardware sales represented in the latest figures don’t yet include the launch of the Xbox Series X/S or PS5, indicating a consistent growth of current-gen consoles.
“We continue to see more video game players, playing for more hours, across more devices,” said games industry analyst at The NPD Group, Mat Piscatella. “We can anticipate another record-breaking quarter in Q4, in large part due to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles entering the market with one of the fastest-selling consoles in U.S. history, the Nintendo Switch.” Hardware sales have increased 16% going into the release of the Xbox Series X/S and PS5, showing more newcomers to the industry ahead of next-gen.
According to the NPD Group, the most successful games on the latest chart were: Among Us, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Fortnite, Ghost of Tsushima, Madden NFL 21, Marvel’s Avengers, Minecraft, NBA 2K21, Paper Mario: The Origami King, Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2. Gaming accessories saw the largest gains in the latest NPD Group sales figures, showing a 35% improvement year-over-year. Considering Microsft confirmed Xbox accessories would be forwards compatible going into next-gen, it’s likely Xbox Series X/S has contributed to the accessory gains.
Are you surprised that gamers continue to spend record amounts or are you spending more on games than you did last year? Let us know in the comments below!