US market dips in October despite hardware growth

NPD has said that the overall video game market spend in the US in October was down 11 per cent year-on-year at $825m.

That’s despite gains in the hardware market, which was up ten per cent at $238m. Switch was the month’s best-selling platform, with Nintendo adding that: “When combined with the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, Nintendo systems accounted for two-thirds of all video game hardware sold in the United States for the second month in a row.”

Furthermore, the SNES Mini was actually the second best selling platform for the period.

For the year-to-date, the PS4 remains the best-selling US machine, and so far the year’s hardware spend is up 19 per cent at $2.3bn. NPD says that “consumer spending on Nintendo Switch, Plug N Play devices such as the SNES Classic and the PS4 continue to provide growth”, with no mention of the Xbox One.

Software sales for the month were down 20 per cent year-on-year at $474m, although year-to-date is up three per cent.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War was October’s best-selling game, beating the month one performance of predecessor Shadow of Mordor by over 20 per cent.

Super Mario Odyssey charted at No.3 for the month, although with digital sales excluded, the plumber (or not plumber now?) comes out on top. The biggest gains were found in the racing genre, sales of which doubled over last year.

For the 12 months ending October, Destiny 2 replaces Battlefield 1 to become the second best-selling game. Bungie’s shooter is also the best-selling game in 2017 to date. Ubisoft was the month’s best performing publisher. Take-Two’s NBA 2K is also the best-selling sports game both in the last 12 months and year-to-date.