US Game Hardware Expenditure Drops Significantly in May 2024

TapTechNews July 9th news, according to the report of the game industry analysis company Circana, the game hardware expenditure in the US in May 2024 decreased by 40% year-on-year.

Analyst Mat Piscatella said that the sales of all major game consoles including Nintendo Switch, Sony PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X/S have all shown a double-digit percentage year-on-year decline, and among them, the decline of Nintendo Switch is the most obvious. Piscatella believes that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom landed on the Nintendo Switch platform last May, which may be part of the reason for the year-on-year decline in hardware sales this May.

PlayStation 5 became the game console with the highest sales and revenue in May, and its sales were also 8% higher than that of the previous-generation PlayStation 4.

TapTechNews noticed that not only the hardware sales are declining. The expenditure on game content (such as the game itself, in-game currency and items) also decreased by 3% compared to the same period last year. In addition, the expenditure on game accessories also decreased by 8% compared to the same period last year, and the PlayStation Portal became the best-selling game accessory in May.

Ghost of Tsushima became the best-selling game in the US in May. This original PlayStation exclusive game quickly became popular after landing on the PC platform and became the single-player game with the most concurrent players on PlayStation on the PC platform. Fortnite still maintains high popularity, and this free game has the most active users on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in May.

Piscatella said: Compared to the same period last year, it is expected that the total expenditure on game hardware, content and accessories in the US in May 2024 will decrease by 6%.

Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft will all launch new hardware in the near future. Last month, Microsoft announced three versions of Xbox game consoles with higher storage capacity, and these consoles will be launched in some markets by the end of this year. Sony is also reportedly planning to release a PS5 Pro console that supports 60 fps ray tracing. Nintendo said that it will announce the news of the next-generation Switch console (code-named Switch 2) before the end of this fiscal year (that is, before March 31, 2025), and it is expected to be officially launched at some point in 2025.