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November 2018 saw the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One all surpass 1.3 million units in a single month. A feat that hasn’t been achieved in November since 2010.
Following Black Friday sales, NPD reports (thanks, GI.biz) that while overall hardware spending was up just 3 per cent year-over-year to $3.9 billion, a boost in Nintendo Switch sales offset declines for the other console manufacturers. But while Nintendo’s hybrid system led the charge in November, overall Sony’s PlayStation 4 continues to have the strongest sales of all consoles across the year.
That said, overall, gaming revenue remained flat YoY at $2.7bn, and software sales declined, thought largely to be due to Call of Duty: Black Ops IV‘s change of release window.
In just a month, Red Dead Redemption 2 has become the year’s second biggest release, second only to Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII, and took the top spot for November’s biggest seller. Then comes Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII, Battlefield V, Fallout 76, Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu / Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee, NBA2K19, Madden NFL 19, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, and FIFA 19, although these figures don’t include the PC or digital sales of all titles.
Accessory and game card – such as controllers and memory cards – hit a record high of $503 million, which is up 35 per cent on last year.
The global gaming industry is expected to generate $134.9 billion by the end of 2018, a 10.9 per cent increase over 2017. 47 per cent of the industry’s revenue is from mobile gaming – that’s up 12.8 per cent on last year, hitting $63.2 billion – and while smartphones hold the biggest share of that at $50 billion (up 14.2 per cent), tablet use is on the rise too, up 7.8 per cent from last year to reach $11.4bn.
The overall total industry consumer spending on video gaming in the US has reached $9.1 billion in the third quarter of 2018, a year-over-year increase of 24 per cent.
Video game content sales increased 25 per cent to $7.9 billion, with all content categories – including full-game, DLC/microtransactions, subscriptions, and mobile – seeing an increase. Mobile games and digital content for console and portable platforms, in particular, saw the biggest boosts, with Candy Crush Saga, Fortnite, Madden NFL 19, Marvel’s Spider-Man and NBA 2K19 all reported to have had the "most positive impact" on dollar sales in the first half of the fiscal year.
