U.S. consumer spending on video games
Gaming industry revenue is cyclical and usually peaks during the holiday season at the end of the year. In March 2023, the total retail revenue of the video game industry in the United States amounted to 4.6 billion U.S. dollars, with games content being the strongest-performing segment. Total monthly consumer spending on video games peaked at 7.63 billion U.S. dollars in December 2020 and despite supply chain issues and limited availability of the current generation of gaming consoles, Christmas 2022 performed to a similar level (7.58 billion U.S. dollars in monthly gaming revenues).Gaming publishers are also doing their best to grab a slice of the holiday and post-season spending – many annual releases of long-running franchises are scheduled between October and December (Activision’s Call of Duty, EA’s FIFA, and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series to name a few), and other major game releases have also benefitted from hitting the market during this period. Santa Monica Studios' God of War: Ragnarök and Nintendo's Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are titles which were released during such favorable market conditions.
Gaming content (full game downloads / physical copies, DLC, and gaming subscriptions) generates the most revenue, but hardware sales are the strongest-growing segment of the video games market in the United States. In the third quarter of 2022, hardware sales grew 16 percent year-over-year. The average monthly video game expenditure per gamer in the United States was approximately 23.87 U.S. dollars, with online gaming services being the industry segment which underwent the most dramatic growth in annual consumer spending between 2019 and 2020 before declining again in 2021.
The PS5 is the leader in the U.S. gaming hardware segment
In January 2023, the PlayStation 5 was by far the best-selling gaming console in the United States. In November 2020, the most recent iterations of Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox gaming consoles were released – the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X and Series S. Currently, the PS5 is ahead of the Xbox X/S in terms of unit sales. The annual revenue of the video game console market in the United States amounted to approximately 6.72 billion U.S. dollars.Gaming software sales in the U.S. are dominated by AAA franchises
Blockbuster gaming franchises dominated U.S. video games sales in March 2023. Sports gaming titles Madden NFL 23, FIFA 23, and NBA 2K23 are mainstays among the top-selling games in the United States, with the top spots that month being claimed by the newly released Resident Evil 4 remake and open-world action RPG Hogwarts Legacy. In 2022, total U.S. consumer spending on video game content amounted to 47.5 billion U.S. dollars, a seven percent decrease from the 51.7 billion U.S. dollars in the preceding year.Puzzle and casino are the strongest mobile gaming segments
With low entry barriers, comparatively low cost of access, and a wide range of genres, it is hardly surprising that mobile gaming is the most common type of gaming in the United States. The mobile gaming market in the United States is thriving, and U.S. mobile gaming revenue reached a record 41.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2022.The fastest-growing mobile gaming genres in 2022 were action games, followed by tabletop and casino titles. Puzzle, casino, and strategy gaming apps accounted for the majority of player spending. This genre preference is also reflected in the ranking of the top-grossing mobile gaming publishers in the United States, which is headed by King, Playrix, and Zynga.
