NPD: In March, American gamers spent $5.6 billion on games

In the United States, the revenue of the gaming market is growing for the 13th month in a row, according to analysts at NPD Group. In March, the spending of American gamers on video games, hardware and accessories amounted to $5.6 billion — 18% more than a year ago. Among the best-selling titles were Monster Hunter: Rise and Outriders.

OutridersGeneral market figures:

• the largest revenue came from sales of game content — $4.6 billion (an increase of 14% year-on-year). We are talking about revenue both from the games themselves for consoles, PCs and mobile devices*, and from subscription and cloud services;
• sales grew the most in the iron segment — by 47% compared to March 2020. This time they reached the $680 million mark. This was achieved largely thanks to the new generation consoles and the Nintendo Switch;
• Last month, Switch became the leader among consoles both in terms of the number of copies sold and in terms of revenue in dollars. Nevertheless, if you look at the entire first quarter (January-March 2021), the title of the most profitable console goes to PlayStation 5;
• Also, the PS5 is the fastest—selling console in the history of the United States by the number of copies sold and by dollar revenue in the five months since the release;
• sales growth in annual terms for accessories amounted to 26% to $300 million. Americans were especially active in buying DualSense controllers.

*Data on sales in the mobile segment was provided by the analytical company Sensor Tower.

Top 20 best-selling games in March

Important: NPD tracks sales of physical copies from retailers and receives data on the “figure” from publishers. But not all companies provide information. For example, Nintendo does not disclose digital sales of exclusives, and Activision Blizzard does not share information from Battle.net .

The rating is also based on net sales of games (without microtransactions and subscriptions). An asterisk marks titles in which digital sales were not taken into account.

• 1) Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
• 2) Monster Hunter: Rise (new)
• 3) Outriders (new)
• 4) Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury*
• 5) Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
• 6) Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
• 7) Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
• 8) Animal Crossing: New Horizons*
• 9) Super Mario 3D All-Stars*
• 10) Minecraft
• 11) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
• 12) Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
• 13) Pokémon Sword/Shield*
• 14) Mortal Kombat 11
• 15) Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time
• 16) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*
• 17) Madden NFL 21
• 18) NBA 2K21*
• 19) Super Mario Party*
• 20) FIFA 21