Covid-19 pandemic and social estrangement measures boosted Spending on U.S. video games. To new heights this quarter, according to a new report by NPD Group’s market analyst released Monday, with revenue reaching $11.6 billion between April and June. year after year.
While most of the spending on content ($10.2 billion in physical, virtual, and subscription sales), the hardware worked well, with PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch expanding by at least 46% each, despite the fact that the PS4 and X1 were in their later years and production delays due to the pandemic.
The Switch is popular: last week, Nintendo announced that it had sold 5.7 million games between April and June, or 61.4 million consoles sold since its release in 2017.
Emblematic of Nintendo’s prominence as a pseudo “getaway” during the pandemic, the company also announced it had sold a staggering 22.4 million copies of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a relaxing life simulator that launched in March and has already cemented itself as the second-bestselling game in the Switch library.
NPD stood out as one of the most productive performance titles this quarter, adding the June release of Of Last of Us: Part II, a PlayStation 4 exclusive on a fatal pandemic that decimates global civilization and divides into tribal factions that NPD in the Past thought to be the largest release ever made in the United States.
The current quarter increased by 7% from the first quarter, which also recorded a record spending of $10.9 billion between January and March, with the United States calling for a national emergency and states beginning to close in mid-March.
When asked on Twitter about a possible ‘collapse’, NPD game analyst Mat Piscatella said, ‘The term I like to use is’going back to the fundamental call’ and noted that June had noticed a drop in the call to the March-May increase.
“During the pandemic, many turned to video games not only to stay concerned, but also to stay in touch with the circle of family and friends,” said Mat Piscatella, NPD’s gaming analyst. “This has led to an acceleration of what were already established trends towards greater participation of video gamers. I don’t see any signs of slowdown.”
While video game stocks have increased since the start of the year, stocks plummeted Friday after President Trump announced an executive order targeting ByteDance and Tencent of TikTok, not only the owner of WeChat, but also the world’s largest video game company. Tencent’s portfolio includes some of the largest corporations and games in the industry. He owns Riot Games, the author of League of Legends, and has stakes in Fortnite developer Epic Games and the publisher of Call of Duty Activision Blizzard. However, the White House later clarified that the order is only intended to block WeChat transactions unlike the entire Tencent empire.
Sony and Microsoft will launch their new consoles this holiday. Throughout the pandemic, corporations stated that there would be no hardware delays or shortages, and Sony would have even higher production by 50%, due to increased demand for games while others remained at home.
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I have the latest news and I also report on the video game industry. I have already written for sites like IGN, Polygon, Red Bull eSports, Kill Screen, Playboy and PC Gamer. I
I give the latest news and also report on the video game industry. I have already written for sites like IGN, Polygon, Red Bull eSports, Kill Screen, Playboy and PC Gamer. I also controlled a YouTube game channel under the so-called strummerdood. I received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Rowan University and did an internship at Philadelphia Magazine. You can follow me on Twitter @mattryanperez.