On Tuesday, market researcher NPD Group published its latest stats on the U.S. videogame industry. (More precisely, NPD videogame analyst Mt Piscatella tweeted the stats).
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">MAR 2020 US NPD THREAD-Nintendo Switch sets a new March hardware sales record, while Animal Crossing: New Horizons is one of Nintendo's fastest selling games in history. Here are all the U.S. Video Game market highlights from The NPD Group!</p>— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) <a href="https://twitter.com/MatPiscatella/status/1252582932369117185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 21, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Here are the highlights:
In the month of March, Nintendo's (NTDOY -1.25%) Animal Crossing: New Horizons social simulation game became both one of Nintendo's fastest-selling games ever, and also the top seller among video game titles in March 2020.
Image source: Nintendo.
In a month where many Americans were stuck at home, spending their discretionary income on games to kill time during quarantine, video game software sales rocketed 34% year over year to $739 million total. Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons became the No. 1 seller, displacing last month's No. 1, Activision's (ATVI) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to claim the top spot. (Don't cry too hard for Activision, though. CoD only slipped one notch to No. 2 in March, and it's still the top seller year-to-date).
Sony's (SONY -0.33%) MLB: The Show 20, a new title, came in at No. 3, followed by offerings from Capcom, Take-Two, Bethesda, and others.
"Nine of the top ten best-selling games of March 2020 generated higher dollar sales than similarly ranked titles a year ago," notes Piscatella.
In related news, game hardware spending was up 63% in March at $461 million, and the No. 1 console again came from Nintendo: The Nintendo Switch.
