U.S. video game spending fell 6% y/y in May, says Circana

Circana analyst Mat Piscatella said that projected U.S. total spending on video game hardware, content and accessories fell 6% in May 2024 when compared to a year ago, to $4B. Year-to-date 2024 spending was 2% higher than a year ago, at $22.8B. May 2024 content spending fell 3% compared to a year ago to $3.6B, as 13% growth in Mobile content spending could not offset a 40% drop in Console content spending. The May 2024 Console spending declines versus a year ago across hardware, content and accessories spending can be partially attributed to the strength of the launch of Nintendo’s (NTDOY) “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” in the May 2023 comparable period. May video game hardware spending declined 40% when compared to a year ago, to $202M, and is now 30% lower YTD. Through May, all current generation hardware platforms are showing double-digit percentage declines year-on-year in 2024, with Switch showing the most significant drop. Sony‘s (SONY) PlayStation 5 again led the month’s hardware market in unit and dollar sales. Nintendo Switch once again finished 2nd in unit sales, while Xbox Series (MSFT) ranked 2nd in dollars. Through each console’s first 43 months in market, PlayStation 5 unit sales lead those of PlayStation 4 by 8%, while Xbox Series trails Xbox One by 13% and remains slightly behind Xbox 360. On the software side, Sony’s “Ghost of Tsushima” was the best-selling game of May 2024 in tracked dollar sales, boosted by the release of the title on Steam during the month. “Ghost of Tsushima” generated a slightly higher consumer spending total across physical and digital game sales than did physical-only sales of Nintendo’s “Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.” Other top sellers for the month included Activision’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III,” Sony’s “Helldivers II” and “MLB The Show 24,” Microsoft’s “Sea of Thieves” and “Minecraft,” Bandai Namco’s (NCBDY) “Elden Ring,” Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) “Hogwarts Legacy,” and Sony’s “Stellar Blade.” Other publicly traded companies in the video game space include Tencent (TCEHY), Take-Two (TTWO), Electronic Arts (EA), Ubisoft (UBSFY), and NetEase (NTES).