March 2022 NPD: Elusive new-gen hardware drags down sales

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Gaming fans in the United States spent less on video game products in March, according to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group. Those declines are due to multiple factors, but an ongoing hardware drought is one of the primary downward-driving forces. That likely had a strong knock-on effect that contributed to a decline across all categories. Here are the full results:

“March 2022 consumer spending across video game hardware, content, and accessories declined 15% when compared to a year ago, to $4.9 billion,” NPD analyst Mat Piscatella said. “Declines were seen across all major categories of spend.”

Of course, it’s also clear that the industry is now giving back some of the gains it made during the pandemic. Games grew quickly when consumers had few other choices when it came to spending their entertainment budget. That momentum has slowed through the first quarter of 2022.

“First quarter 2022 spending fell 8% when compared to the same period a year ago, to $13.9 billion,” said Piscatella.

But the hardware shortage is likely still the biggest culprit. People tend to spend a lot of money on new games and accessories when they buy new systems. With those devices so rare in March, new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S adopters were not making those extra purchases.

Let’s get to the software.

NPD tracks physical sales at retailers, but it also gets digital data directly from publishers. Not every company participates. For example, Nintendo doesn’t share its first-party sales, and Activision Blizzard does not provide its Battle.net sales.

These charts are sorted by dollar sales — not number of units sold. And this is