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[Luminoth-4545]

Circana March 2024: #1 Dragon's Dogma #3 MLB: The Show #5 Rise of Ronin #6 Peach; PS5 #1 Units + Rev, Switch #2 Units Xbox #2 Rev

State of the market Projected total US spending on video game hardware, content and accessories gained 4% in March 2024 vs YA, reaching $4.9B. Mobile content spending grew 15%, offseting a 32% drop in hardware. (Mobile source: Sensor Tower) Mobile’s strong performance was supplemented by a 3%...

www.installbaseforum.com

Credit: Welfare

State of the market

Projected total US spending on video game hardware, content and accessories gained 4% in March 2024 vs YA, reaching $4.9B. Mobile content spending grew 15%, offseting a 32% drop in hardware. (Mobile source: Sensor Tower)

Mobile’s strong performance was supplemented by a 3% increase in Console Content spend, along with a 2% gain in the PC, Cloud and Non-Console VR Content segment. Mobile accounted for 89% of the total year-on-year growth in video game content spending during the month.

Hardware

March video game hardware spending fell 32% when compared to a year ago, to $391 million. PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and Switch spending each declined a minimum of 30% year-on-year. Hardware spending finished the first quarter down 24% versus the first quarter of 2023.

PlayStation 5 led the hardware market in unit and dollar sales during both March and the first quarter. Nintendo Switch once again finished 2nd in unit sales across both time periods while Xbox Series ranked 2nd in dollars.

Software

Dragon’s Dogma II debuted as the best-selling premium game of March and the 3rd best-selling game of 2024 YTD. With just one month in market, Dragon’s Dogma II has already surpassed the life-to-date tracked dollar sales of Dragon’s Dogma and Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen combined.

Helldivers II remains the best-selling premium game of 2024 year-to-date after placing 2nd in March. Helldivers II currently ranks 7th in lifetime US dollar sales for Sony published titles after just two months in market.

Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth remained the 4th best-selling game of 2024 year-to-date, despite falling 5 spots in the monthly rankings to 7th in March after placing 2nd in February. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth currently ranks 14th across all Final Fantasy releases in lifetime dollar sales in the US market. Final Fantasy XV is 1st all-time, followed by Final Fantasy VII: Remake and the original Final Fantasy VII.

Mobile

Sensor Tower reports the top 10 games by US consumer spending in March and the change in rank vs Feb as: MONOPOLY GO!, Royal Match, Roblox, Candy Crush Saga, Coin Master (+1), Whiteout Survival (+1), Last War: Survival (+4), Pokémon Go (-3), Township (+1) and Clash of Clans (-2).

“The highlight this month is Last War: Survival, which grew 40% to overtake Pokémon GO, Township, and Clash of Clans,” said Samuel Aune of Sensor Tower. “Last War: Survival is now right on the heels of fellow 2023 4X Strategy launch Whiteout Survival (+14% MoM)."

“The top four games remain unchanged and continue to maintain a significant gap from the rest of the field, with MONOPOLY GO! still holding a commanding lead over 2nd place Royal Match,” said Aune.

Accessories

March spending on Accessories increased 9% when compared to a year ago to $242M, helped by 8% growth in headset/headphone spending.

The PlayStation Dual Sense Edge was the best-selling accessory in dollar sales during both March and the first quarter.

Software Charts

Multiplatform

Year to Date

Playstation

Xbox

Switch

Monthly Active User Engagement

Top 10 Games Played on PlayStation 5 Ranked by Monthly Active Users (US)

Top 10 Games Played on Xbox Series Ranked by Monthly Active Users (US)

Top 10 Games Played on Steam Ranked by Monthly Active Users (US)

Rankings

Units: PS5 > NSW > XBS
Revenue: PS5 > XBS > NSW

Thanks Mat Piscatella!

Update:

Welfare's Estimates

PS5: 525K
NSW: 235K
XBS: 205K

 

[Luminoth-4545]

Nice performance for all the new releases and Rebirth did okay for it's second month.

 

[Kacho]

Great OP. Please copy and paste before the merge Draugoth

 

[feynoob]

What do you expect would happen, when you cut down your marketing department.

MS has been embarrassment this gen. No marketing for big games, no marketing for Xbox consoles, bad naming consoles, and satya not firing any of the top xbox leadership.

Glad that activision blizzard was nice to your porfolio your turds. Mess of a company.

 

[Katatonic]

Go Ronin!

 

[StereoVsn]

Damn, that’s some serious hardware drop for all the platforms.

 

[Woopah]

Damn, that’s some serious hardware drop for all the platforms.

Industry needs GTA VI and Switch 2 to restart growth.

 

[UchihaMadara]

Hardware Estimates from IB:

PS5: 460K
NSW: 240K
XBS: 195K

 

[StereoVsn]

Industry needs GTA VI and Switch 2 to restart growth.

Honestly I think there is a price drop that’s needed as well.

 

[skyfinch]

All this bullshit talk and Xbox still number 2 in revenue? Imagine when Forspoken and Foamstar gets dropped during June's Xbox showcase. Return of the mother fucking King!

 

[Luminoth-4545]

So year over revenue declined between 30 to 35% for all platforms and the much cheaper price of the PS5 versus last year (discounted all month) also needs to be noted, here are the unit estimates by Welfare from InstallBase.

March 2024

PS5: 525K
NSW: 235K
XBS: 205K

Estimations for 2024

Month	PS5	XBS	NSW
Jan-24	425,000	210,000	250,000
Feb-24	410,000	195,000	220,000
Mar-24	525,000	205,000	235,000
Total-24	1,360,000	610,000	705,000

Full Estimations for 2023

Month	PS5	XBS	NSW
Jan-23	430,000	200,000	280,000
Feb-23	560,000	240,000	290,000
Mar-23	660,000	280,000	340,000
Apr-23	360,000	180,000	420,000
May-23	270,000	160,000	450,000
Jun-23	430,000	240,000	350,000
Jul-23	270,000	160,000	240,000
Aug-23	400,000	210,000	200,000
Sep-23	480,000	300,000	200,000
Oct -23	360,000	200,000	210,000
Nov - 23	1,050,000	580,000	560,000
Dec - 23	1,520,000	1,110,000	1,230,000
2023	6,800,000	3,860,000	4,770,000
LTD	18,700,000	13,560,000	44,180,000

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Nice to see Ronin doing well. Got the plat, good game. Stopped playing HD2 awhile back but glad to see it’s still doing great. I’ll get back in eventually.

 

[Luminoth-4545]

Hardware Estimates from IB:

PS5: 460K
NSW: 240K
XBS: 195K

These are figures with a pure 30% drop in units without including the price difference versus last year. The PS5 being around 90$ cheaper per system bumps up the unit sales, so a 30% decline in revenue would only mean around a 20% decline in units.

 

[Three]

We get platform sales charts again? Not complaining but why did they stop reporting them for a while?

 

[BennyBlanco]

Balatro in the top 4 on Steam is wild. May very well be my GOTY.

 

[UchihaMadara]

These are figures with a pure 30% drop in units without including the price difference versus last year. The PS5 being around 90$ cheaper per system bumps up the unit sales, so a 30% decline in revenue would only mean around a 20% decline in units.

I stand corrected.

According to Welfare from IB:

PS5: ~525K
NSW: ~235K
XBS: ~205K

 

[yazenov]

We get platform sales charts again? Not complaining but why did they stop reporting them for a while?

the check/cheque must have bounced.

 

[yazenov]

All this bullshit talk and Xbox still number 2 in revenue?

It seems that the Series X is in higher demand than the Series S. But both combined are in lower demand than the Switch, hence Xbox 2nd in revenue only.

 

[mayham2199]

Honestly I think there is a price drop that’s needed as well.

I don't think that's it at all. I think most people just have no reason to upgrade. The top played games are still available on last gen. One of my friends we play with all the time only upgraded because of hell divers 2. I think GTA 6 will help.

 

[Three]

It seems that the Series X is in higher demand than the Series S. But both combined are in lower demand than the Switch, hence Xbox 2nd in revenue only.

I doubt the X is outselling the S but possibly. The Switch Lite is $100 cheaper than the Series S and the Series X $200 more than the S. The S could be considerably outselling the X and it would still be higher revenue than Switch overall.

 

[Unknown?]

Hardware Estimates from IB:

PS5: 460K
NSW: 240K
XBS: 195K

Yikes!

I stand corrected.

According to Welfare from IB:

PS5: ~525K
NSW: ~235K
XBS: ~205K

MMaMan not even half of PS5 for Xbox. This is tax season too!

 

[TintoConCasera]

Glad to see Dogma's doing well, hopefully means further support from Capcom.

 

[Horseganador]

It seems that PS5 continues to dominate in the USA, on console more than 2:1, in soft with Helldivers 2 and in peripherals with the dual sense edge.

 

[Woopah]

It seems that PS5 continues to dominate in the USA, on console more than 2:1, in soft with Helldivers 2 and in peripherals with the dual sense edge.

I don't see this changing until Switch 2 comes out.

 

[Horseganador]

I don't see this changing until Switch 2 comes out.

We'll see what happens in 2025 with a PS5 + GTAVI vs Switch 2 + Mario...I'm curious.

 

[Three]

The Xbox engagement chart is a little bit surprising. No starfield, no FM, the recent first party tentpole releases missing even on gamepass engagement is a little strange.

 

[Woopah]

Honestly I think there is a price drop that’s needed as well.

That will certainly help PS5, but I don't see that coming until 2025 either.

We'll see what happens in 2025 with a PS5 + GTAVI vs Switch 2 + Mario...I'm curious.

I reckon PS5 and Switch 2 will swap positions a fair bit in 2025, and then Switch 2 will lead more consistently in 2026.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

I stand corrected.

According to Welfare from IB:

PS5: ~525K
NSW: ~235K
XBS: ~205K

PS5 selling more than the double of both MS and Nintendo together is...something indeed.

That's what a good lineup of games does to your brand.

 

[Bond007]

Xbox lineup of sellers almost gives you a picture of the ecosystem over there and everything wrong.
Nothing attracts you there and all the big names are nowhere to be found or disappointed. Exclusives matter when you are trying to sell a console- sorry

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Launch aligned sales figures last gen vs current gen:

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

PC port of HFW bombed. And it was a great port.

Makes me wonder what the point is at this point and why Sony bothers.

 

[yazenov]

Unicorn Overlord is #2 in the Switch individual chart. It's #11 for PS and #19 for Xbox.

All things considered, it did decent on PS since there were a lot of competing games on PS such as FF7 Rebirth, Rise of the Ronin, Dragon's Dogma 2, and HellDivers 2.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Unicorn Overlord is #2 in the Switch individual chart. It's #11 for PS and #19 for Xbox.

All things considered, it did decent on PS since there were a lot of competing games on PS such as FF7 Rebirth, Rise of the Ronin, Dragon's Dogma 2, and HellDivers 2.

It did great, especially on the Switch (it plays very well in both docked and portable mode so many picked it up there).

Hopefully it reaches 1 million copies sold worldwide by the time the first anniversary comes around, as Vanillaware deserves it for creating such an awesome SRPG.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

PC port of HFW bombed. And it was a great port.

Makes me wonder what the point is at this point and why Sony bothers.

according to shawn layden the idea was to bring more people to PlayStation.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Helldivers 2 success is insane. 7th best grossing Sony first party game in history lol

Jim Ryan did it

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

according to shawn layden the idea was to bring more people to PlayStation.

Worst PS executive ever

 

[MasterCornholio]

Helldivers 2 success is insane. 7th best grossing Sony first party game in history lol

Jim Ryan did it

You know that guy is dead right.

 

[Mortisfacio]

Props to Elden Ring for being a 2 year old largely single player game still in the top 20. Got more recent big budget games like SM2 already about to fall off the list.

 

[Flabagast]

Props to Elden Ring for being a 2 year old largely single player game still in the top 20. Got more recent big budget games like SM2 already about to fall off the list.

SM2 was a really mid game though. Totally unnecessary would be a good term also.

 

[IntentionalPun]

PC port of HFW bombed. And it was a great port.

Makes me wonder what the point is at this point and why Sony bothers.

How can you tell it “bombed” from this?

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

How can you tell it “bombed” from this?

It was only 14th on the month’s best sellers, its release month on PC

 

[IntentionalPun]

It was only 14th on the month’s best sellers, its release month on PC

It was released last month. It’s also a PC only port on a multi platform chart.

The expectations of these are low so the word “bombed” is a bit much. Low budget ports of games that are from 2 years ago on a platform popular with PC gamers.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

It was released last month. It’s also a PC only port on a multi platform chart.

The expectations of these are low so the word “bombed” is a bit much. Low budget ports of games that are from 2 years ago on a platform popular with PC gamers.

Yes these are for last month right?

The multiplatform part (ps4/5) is negligible. Look at last months ranking of 107

 

[Three]

Props to Elden Ring for being a 2 year old largely single player game still in the top 20. Got more recent big budget games like SM2 already about to fall off the list.

Only because it's holding on strong on across 5 platforms PS, Steam, and xbox with DLC announced. SM2 is PS5 only and doing better than Elden ring on the PS platform chart, YTD chart and engagement chart. It's certainly not because SM2 is doing badly.

 

[kazuyamishima]

Got more recent big budget games like SM2 already about to fall off the list.

Bundles units for Nicheman 2 are not counted in the charts tho.

 

[user friendly]

Jeeze, was COD a good buy?

 

[IntentionalPun]

Yes these are for last month right?

The multiplatform part (ps4/5) is negligible. Look at last months ranking of 107

Are you high? You said it was it’s release month and now are mentioning it’s previous months sales lol

Don’t see how that’s negligible when there’s no PC only SKU on that list. These aren’t expected to be multi platform chart toppers. Sony has had incredibly realistic expectations, they state them on their investor calls.

 

[FIREKNIGHT2029]

I stand corrected.

According to Welfare from IB:

PS5: ~525K
NSW: ~235K
XBS: ~205K

It's insane how well PS5 is selling especially when you consider it hasn't had a price drop yet.

On the other hand, XBS consoles doing worse than the XB1 is a complete disaster. You know MS is definitely going to be abandoning them soon. How do you have two SKUs on the market to cover all your bases and still end up doing worse than the XB1? This is baffling. Shows that Xbox as a console brand has totally tanked.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Are you high? You said it was it’s release month and now are mentioning it’s previous months sales lol

Don’t see how that’s negligible when there’s no PC only SKU on that list. These aren’t expected to be multi platform chart toppers. Sony has had incredibly realistic expectations, they state them on their investor calls.

Are you high?

This is for March sales. It released in March. First month on PC.

107th rank last month (no pc) to 14th rank (first month pc)

 

[IntentionalPun]

Are you high?

This is for March sales. It released in March. First month on PC.

107th rank last month (no pc) to 14th rank (first month pc)

Hah thanks.

(FWIW “last month” is April, it’s May bro, but yes I AM high)