According to The NPD Group’s Q2 2020 Games Market Dynamics report, consumer spending on video games in the US was up 30 percent year-over-year in the second quarter (April – June), reaching a record $11.6 billion, and up seven percent sequentially versus the $10.9 billion spent in the first three months of the year.
Breaking it down, we see that sales in the hardware category jumped 57 percent compared to the same period in 2019, to $848 million. Accessory and peripheral sales brought in another $584 million, a 50 percent jump year-over-year. The bulk of the haul came from sales of video game content, which accounted for $10.2 billion.
Hardware sales were “only” $848 million, but that mark represented a massive 57 percent bump from Q2 2019. NPD said that console sales were strong across the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 so even though these consoles have all been available for a while, they all got a nice bump. Similarly, the accessories category was also up 50 percent compared to a year ago.
As for what games drove this surge, there aren’t a lot of surprises on NPD’s list. New titles Fantasy VII: Remake and The Last of Us Part II combined with time-tested sellers like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Warzone, Grand Theft Auto V, Mario Kart 8: Deluxe and, of course, Minecraft.
Given that the US is still advised to stay home as much as possible, NPD doesn’t see this trend reverseing itself any time soon. That doesn’t mean Q3 will be another record, but it does make the upcoming Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 launches particularly interesting.
