Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Video game spending saw an increase of 27% in 2020 because Covid-19 pandemic forced people to stay at their homes and people had to seek comfort and distraction through gaming. This comes in contrast to the consumer electronics space where economic uncertainty curtailed through purchase of non-essentials.

The latest figures of NPD says that spending on gaming hardware, software and accessories was around 25% in December 2020 and went up to 27% towards the end of 2020. Hardware particularly increased 38% year-over-year for December 2020 to $1.35 billion with the arrival of next-gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft.

It is the highest figure since the $1.37 billion hit in December 2013 when the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were introduced. Despite of the new arrivals, Nintendo’s Switch One was able to dominate sales for the month and PS5 was able to grab the 2nd spot. The Switch’s 2020 was the second-highest annual performance in terms of console after Wii in 2008.

The Switch, which will turn three in March 2021 got a very slow start and because of limited availability. But the release of a new Animal Crossing title helped it to reach at the top, because isolated consumers were looking for new venues in social gaming. The title was able to take the third spot for the year and finished behind Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.