Mat Piscatella, the managing director of Circana, a market analysis company, has revealed that in May of this year, both video game consoles and game discs saw a 6% decline in sales in the United States compared to last year. However, cumulative sales since the beginning of the year have increased by 2%.
When it comes to console sales, there was a significant 40% drop compared to 2023, with Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony all experiencing a decrease in sales. Among the three companies, Nintendo Switch saw the largest decline in sales.
Piscatella attributes the drop in Switch sales compared to the previous year to the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom last year, while Nintendo did not release a flagship game this year.
In terms of game sales, Ghost of Tsushima claimed the top spot due to its recent release on PC, followed by Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III in second and third place, respectively. Sony’s lineup includes several top-selling games such as Helldivers 2, Stellar Blade, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and Rise of the Ronin. On the other hand, Microsoft’s top-ranking games include Sea of Thieves, Minecraft, and Fallout 4.
In May 2024, total spending on video game hardware, content, and accessories in the U.S. dropped by 6% compared to the previous year, amounting to $4.0 billion. However, year-to-date spending in 2024 was 2% higher than the previous year, reaching $22.8 billion.
TLDR: May 2024 saw a decline in video game sales in the U.S., with Nintendo Switch experiencing the biggest drop in console sales, while Sony and Microsoft had several top-selling games. Despite the overall decrease, year-to-date spending in 2024 was higher than the previous year.
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