Video Games sales in U.S. (retail & digital) - April 2017

Analysis from NPD's VG industry analyst, Mat Piscatella

Total video game spending, which includes hardware, software and accessories, grew 10 percent versus year ago to $636 million, the first time the industry has experienced two months of consecutive growth since November 2015. The Nintendo Switch led hardware sales, while Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Persona 5, and The Legend of Zelda : Breath of the Wild, drove software sales.

NPD Group's U.S. Games Industry Sales - April 2017
4-week month ; Reporting Period 04/02/17 through 04/29/17

Hardware

Hardware spending jumped 37 percent compared to April 2016, to $195 million. The Nintendo Switch was the catalyst for this growth with sales exceeding 280,000 units.

The industry drove the highest April hardware dollar sales since April 2011.

Nintendo owned the top 2 platforms in unit sales for the month, with the Nintendo Switch at #1, followed by NES Classic.

Software

Video game software dollar sales grew 6 percent versus year ago to $304 million, driven by the launches of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Persona 5, along with a strong second month for The Legend of Zelda : Breath of the Wild.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was the month's top-selling title. As a property, Mario Kart is the all-time best-selling Racing franchise in the U.S.

April saw the release of Xbox 360 Call Of Duty : Black Ops II as a backward compatible game for the Xbox One, helping the title chart in the top 10.

Persona 5 experienced the strongest debut month for any title in Persona franchise history, with packaged dollar sales five times that of the previous best-selling debut, Shin Megami Tensei : Persona 4.

Year to date, the top 2 games in dollar sales are both published by Ubisoft : Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon : Wildlands, the best-selling game of the year through April ; and For Honor, which charted at #2 through April.

Seven different publishers produced the top 10 April titles for the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo published three of the top 10, while Warner Bros. Interactive, Sega, Konami, Nicalis, Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard all published titles for the Nintendo Switch that appear in April's top 10.

April 2017 Top 20 Games (Physical and Full Game Digital Formats for publishers in the digital panel ; across all platforms incl. PC), ranked on dollar sales

Accessories

Total spend on Accessories and Gamecards** grew 4 percent compared to last year to $126 million.

Gamepad sales grew 9 percent in April compared to a year ago. The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller was the #1 Gamepad of the month.