Port Washington, NY — Total industry consumer spending on video gaming in the U.S. continued to break records, reaching $11.2 billion in the third quarter of 2020 (July – September), an increase of 24% compared to the same time period last year, according to NPD.

Sales of video game content reached $10.04 billion in the third quarter, up 24 percent when compared to a year ago. Gains were seen across new physical software, digital console and PC content, mobile and subscription spending, as well as across hardware and accessories categories. The most significant gains were in mobile and subscription spending, full-game downloads for consoles and portables, and video game accessories. Hardware and accessories experienced double-digit percentage gains, increasing 16% and 35%, respectively.

Games such as Among Us, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Fortnite, Ghost of Tsushima, Madden NFL 21, Marvel’s Avengers, Minecraft, NBA 2K21, Paper Mario: The Origami King, Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 were among the best-performing titles of the third quarter.

“We continue to see more video game players, playing for more hours, across more devices,” said Mat Piscatella, games industry analyst at The NPD Group. “We can anticipate another record-breaking quarter in Q4, in large part due to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles entering the market with one of the fastest-selling consoles in U.S. history, the Nintendo Switch.”

Methodology: Games Market Dynamics: U.S. provides a comprehensive measure of the consumer spend on video games in the U.S. including purchases of video games hardware, software and accessories as well as on PC games. It is released on a quarterly basis and provides insight and trending into the broader consumer spend on the industry including physical format sales such as new and used physical retail sales as well as game rentals, and digital format sales including full game digital downloads and downloadable content (DLC), spending on subscriptions and mobile gaming. This assessment of the broader consumer spend on the industry utilizes NPD’s monthly POS tracking services as well as consumer data from other NPD trackers, monitors, and reports.