Big business continues to thrive in the U.S. video game market, even if numbers are slightly down from last year.
According to a report from the NPD group, Americans spent approximately $2.88 billion on gaming software during the second quarter. That’s a big number, but, surprisingly, it’s lower than previous years, down three percent from year-over-year. The numbers were unveiled as part of the quarterly Games Market Dynamics: US report.
According to said report, most of the sales – about 61 percent – came from digital games, with $1.77 billion totaled. These include full game downloads, add-on content and mobile/social games combined.
NPD analyst Liam Callahan stated, “The decrease in new physical spending is partly due to the decline in the number of new SKUs released at retail, (with 37 percent fewer new SKUs in Q2 ’13 compared to Q2 ’12) which is to be expected as developers, publishers and consumers alike prepare for the next hardware generation,” Callahan said. “Increases in digital format spending offset nearly all the losses from the declines in physical format spending, with digital full game downloads and downloadable content spending experiencing a combined 27 percent increase (when compared to Q2 ’12). Spending increases occurred across both video games and PC games in the digital format.”
We’ll see how Q3 2013 fares with a number of new releases on the horizon.
Source: GamesIndustry International
