Video game revenue has seen a significant boom over the last couple years with family and friends using gaming as a way to stay connected, while avoiding the spreading of COVID-19. All things that go up must eventually come down though and we’re beginning to see video game sales decrease from their peak pandemic numbers over the first half of 2022. The following data comes from The NPD Group, per a thread by industry advisor Mat Piscatella on Twitter.
Here are some of the key points that stuck out in Piscatella’s thread:
• First half spending (January-June 2022) at $26.3B is down 10% when compared to the first half of 2021.
• Subscription content is the only major spending category that saw growth.
• The PlayStation 5 generated the highest dollar sales amongst video game hardware platforms; the Nintendo Switch led in unit sales.
• Elden Ring has sold incredibly well since its launch in late February 2022, now finding itself in the top 10 best-selling premium games in the all-time US market.
So what does this all mean? In summary, video game-related sales spiked during the height of the pandemic in 2020-2021 – it makes sense that we see a dropoff as life returns to semi-normalcy with people being able to leave their houses again and sporting events, concerts, etc starting back up. On the hardware side of things, console makers continue to struggle with supply shortages to meet overall demand, especially when it comes to newer consoles like the Xbox Series X|S and the PlayStation 5. As games continue to transition to no longer being available for older hardware like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, we’ll begin to see fewer and fewer last generation console sales with an even higher demand for the newer consoles. On the software side, a strong set of titles is slated to release this October and November, it will be interesting to see how the sales square up to their predecessors in 2021.
Image from: The NPD Group
