Coronavirus has pushed a lot of industries into financial depression, partly due to broken supply chains, and partly due to the reduced spending power of the average joe. However, gaming, much like streaming, has emerged as a victor in all this, and managed to show unprecedented growth during these uncertain times.
A report from NPD states that the U.S. gaming industry has managed to outperform itself, both on a quarterly and annual basis. In total, the industry managed to generate $11.6 billion in the quarter, which is a 30% increase from the same time last year and a 7% increase over Q1’s 10.9 billion, which was a record in itself.
Out of this $11.6 billion, about $10.2 billion came from actual video game titles, a 28% over the numbers last year. Titles like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Warzone, Candy Crush Saga, Candy Crush Soda Saga, Final Fantasy VII: Remake, Grand Theft Auto V, Mario Kart 8: Deluxe, Minecraft, NBA 2K20, Pokémon Go and The Last of Us: Part II were able to perform outstandingly well, even if some of them left fans a little disappointed (whose genius idea was it to kill Joel off in The Last of Us: Part II ?).
The boom was pretty uniform, and growth was registered across multiple streams, including new physical content, digital console and PC content, mobile and subscription spending.
Moreover, sales from the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One grew tremendously, and led to the hardware category accumulating a total of $848 million, an increase of 58%. While the growth of Nintendo Switch was expected, growing sales of PS4 and Xbox One are very surprising, mostly due to the fact that their next gen counterparts are right around the corner. However, since the releases are still set for some time later this year, and people are getting restless with all the waiting, especially while being in lockdown, if there was ever a right time to buy an older gen console, it is now.
Even the sales of video game accessories including gamepads, headsets, steering wheels and other peripherals increased 50% to $584 million-a testament to potential of the gaming business.
