July 10, according to a new report by CIRCANA, a leading game industry analyst, 2024 hardware spending in the United States in May fell sharply from a year earlier, by as much as 40% .
Mat Piscatella, Circana’s executive director and a consultant to the video game industry, said: All major console sales, including the Nintendo Switch, Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/s, suffered”Double-digit percentage year-on-year declines”. Among them, the Nintendo Switch’s decline was the most obvious, becoming the fall of the hard-hit area. The release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on Nintendo’s Switch platform in May last year gave the Switch a significant boost, while similar heavyweight titles were absent in the same period this year, analysts said, may have contributed to the decline in sales.
In spite of the overall market weakness, the PlayStation 5 had a relatively stellar month in May, becoming the top-selling and highest-selling console, with sales 8 per cent higher than the previous-generation PlayStation 4. The results helped allay some concerns about Sony’s hardware sales prospects.
It’s worth noting that not only are hardware sales down, but spending on game content and accessories is also suffering. Compared with the same period last year, spending on game content (such as the game itself, in-game currency and props) was down 3% , and spending on game accessories was down 8% .
Piscatella further forecast that overall 2024 spending on game hardware, content and accessories was expected to fall 6 per cent in May compared with the same month last year. This forecast undoubtedly sounded the alarm for the entire game industry, reminding manufacturers of the need to pay more attention to market dynamics, timely adjustment of strategies to deal with potential market risks.