Consumer spending on gaming consoles increased last year, while game sales fell.
Despite the shortage of new-generation consoles like the Xbox Series X or PS 5, console sales have grown by 22% over the past year.
Speculation that arose when the PS5 and Xbox Series X launched in November 2020 caused a shortage of goods for these consoles. Even so, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo still have extremely high sales for their latest game consoles. Over the past year, more than 17 million PS5 consoles have been sold, surpassing the sales the Nintendo Wii U has accumulated during its five years of existence.
The shortage of consoles is expected to continue through 2022, and judging by social media, many people have given up trying to buy new gaming consoles. . Some gamers like to upgrade their devices regularly, while others are still satisfied with old consoles like PS4 and Xbox One. Thought that meant console sales would drop and games sales would skyrocket, but a new report says otherwise.
NPD Group, a company that analyzes consumer trends across multiple industries, recently released some data on consumer spending in the video game sector from January 2021 to January 2022. Despite the shortage of new-generation consoles such as Xbox Series X or PS5, console sales have grown by 22% over the past year. During the same time period, video game accessory sales fell 15% and software sales fell 4%. This software revenue includes physical and digital games, as well as DLC and subscription services across all platforms such as console, cloud, mobile, PC and VR.
While the data clearly shows that gamers have spent less money on games in the past year, the market is constantly fluctuating due to many factors.
At first glance, many people might attribute those declines to an increasing number of players signing up for free gaming services like Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus or Nintendo Switch Online. However, the data provided by the NPD Group includes registrations for those services, and that number has clearly declined over the past year as well. This contrasts with previous numbers, especially during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when consumer spending on video games skyrocketed, breaking revenue records. sales of many game companies. Most recently since Q3 2021 (July-September), sales of games, consoles, and accessories grew 7% year-over-year in 2020.
While the data clearly shows that gamers have spent less money on games in the past year, the market is constantly fluctuating due to many factors. For example, overall spending on PC gaming and its accessories has increased by 25% compared to 2020, but NPD Group is expected to decrease by 4% in 2022 mainly due to the impact of the pandemic. Translate.
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