Statistics from NPD show that US gamers are spending less on video games this year than in 2021. This market analysis shows that in the second quarter of this year, there has been very slow growth in the video games industry.
Statistics from market stats research firm NPD reports that US consumer spending on video game products has declined by $1.78 billion in the second quarter of this year. Following this trend, the overall video games sales so far in this year have accounted for a 13 percent fall year for year. These findings are both referenced from Microsoft's and Sony's reporting revenue declines as the pandemic growth slows.
Quarter 2: Sony and Xbox Dips in Sales
As reported by The Verge, multinational conglomerate company Sony has already foreseen a weaker Playstation business earlier this week after determining a 26 percent decline in sales year over year. Sony points out a lack of big PlayStation titles released this year and the phenomenon where people are now playing games with fewer hours as the reason for this sudden dip in sales.
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On the other hand, Microsoft's Xbox faces the same dilemma: Xbox hardware has plummeted into an eleven percent drop in sales in the same quarter. Overall, Xbox declared a seven percent dip in its overall gaming revenue.
A recent report from Gaming News shares that Nintendo is scheduled to release its financial upshots for the first quarter of its fiscal year on Wednesday, but the firm predicted earlier this year that it anticipates selling 21 million Switch systems for its fiscal year ending in March, which is anticipated to be a record-breaking number. It was 23,1 million in 2017.
Experts: Sales Decline may be Caused by Several Factors
Consumer spending "continues to trend beyond pre-pandemic levels" despite spending drops during high rates of inflation and after a significant period of growth, according to Mat Piscatella, an analyst for the games industry at NPD.
Gamers need not worry as many factors of these declines in sales are due to some temporary factors. Some gaming companies are hindered from processing new game releases because of the constraints set by the pandemic. Also, the pandemic and the present economy are factors to some companies capping their consoles supply.
Despite these suspected factors, it is still unclear whether inflation has something to do with many gaming companies losing sales in the second quarter of 2022. These worrisome numbers tell us a lot of things about the companies that run the gaming industry, but most certainly, gamers are still waiting for the coolest releases out there. This slump in sales may be the cost of an intensified appetite for gaming that people had through the pandemic, and now, as the health emergency is halting, people can expect a slow comeback.
Experts are looking at the pandemic as a reason for these rapid changes in sales percentages. As many populations start to face the new normal, we could be seeing some more developments in these numbers. Many believe that these drastic shifts may be caused by the effects of the pandemic tearing up the economy since 2020.
Gaming fans could only hope that these declines in sales would not cause our favorite gaming console and platform companies to shut down. Also, we could only wish that these changes do not blow up gaming costs in the coming days.
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