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[Jaybe]

State of the market
Projected U.S. total spending on video game hardware, content and accessories fell 6% during Sep 2024 when compared to a year ago. The decline was driven by a 44% drop in hardware spending and a 3% dip in content.

Hardware
September video game hardware spending fell 44% when compared to a year ago, to $251 million. This is the lowest monthly hardware spend total for a September month since 2019 ($242 million). Xbox Series hardware spending dropped 54% year-on-year, with PS5 (-45%) and Switch (-23%) also showing sharp declines. YTD hardware spending is now 30% lower than a year ago, at $2.5 billion.

PlayStation 5 again led the month’s hardware market in unit and dollar sales, with Xbox Series ranking 2nd in dollars and Nintendo Switch #2 in units sold.

Xbox Series X consoles comprised 58% of total Xbox Series units sold in September, and account for the majority of Xbox Series units sold life-to-date (51%).

40% of total PlayStation 5 hardware unit sales in September came from Digital PS5 consoles. Digital consoles now comprise 18% of total life-to-date unit sales of PS5 hardware.

Software
EA Sports FC 25 was September’s best-selling video game in tracked spending, with double-digit percentage growth compared to EA Sports FC 24 during its Sep 2023 launch month. EA Sports FC 25 reached the highest US launch month dollar sales of any soccer game released to date.

Astro Bot ranked as the #2 best-selling game of the month, debuting as the 25th best-seller of 2024 year-to-date.

Mobile
Sensor Tower: Top 10 mobile games by U.S. consumer spend in September and rank change vs August: MONOPOLY GO!, Royal Match (+1), Roblox (-1), Candy Crush Saga, Last War: Survival, Whiteout Survival, Township, Brawl Stars (+4), Coin Master (-1) and Pokémon GO (-1).

“The big story this month is Brawl Stars. which grew its US spend a whopping 64% month over month... Brawl Stars held a groundbreaking collab with SpongeBob SquarePants, which led to record breaking US spend in a single day for the game,” said Samuel Aune of Sensor Tower. “Another huge story was Last War: Survival's downloads exploding 42% month over month, reaching an all-time daily high of 430,000 and a new daily velocity of downloads around triple what Last War: Survival was pulling before,” said Aune.
Accessories
The PlayStation Portal was the best-selling accessory in dollar sales for both September and 2024 year-to-date. 3% of PlayStation 5 owners have purchased a PlayStation Portal to date.

Software Charts

Year to Date

Monthly Active User Engagement

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

Credit to Circana for the data and Welfare at Install Base for the formatting

 

[Jaybe]

Low hardware sales, PS5 Pro can’t come soon enough

 

[XXL]

Dead Rising rise might have to do with the PS5 Pro patch being announced.

It's a pretty massive difference.

Because AFAIK it never had a sale.

Astro Bot

 

[Jaybe]

Star Wars Outlaws still not in the top 20 for the year

 

[HeWhoWalks]

Low hardware sales, PS5 Pro can’t come soon enough

The Pro is not going to make that big of a difference outside of week 1. The console needs a price drop and we are heading into the holiday season.

 

[UchihaMadara]

Hardware sales are bad. PS5 pro and GTA 6 can't come soon enough

 

[adamsapple]

Low hardware sales, PS5 Pro can’t come soon enough

Not sure what you're expecting it to accomplish. It's not gonna make a notable dent, maybe a report-worthy increase for the first month or two at most.

 

[Coloress_Kafka]

Great to see Astro Bot rank in the top 5!

 

[Kacho]

Xbox Series hardware spending dropped 54% year-on-year, with PS5 (-45%).

Damn. The HD console market is in tatters.

 

[XXL]

September 2023 for reference for YOY.

Sales-Age - Circana (NPD) September 2023: #1 Starfield #2 Mortal Kombat 1 #3 EA FC24; PS5 #1 Units + Revenue, XBS #2 Units + Revenue

Credit: Welfare from InstallBase State of the market September 2023 US Video Game Market Highlights from Circana - U.S. consumer spending on video game content, hardware and accessories grew 10% compared to a year ago, totaling $4.5B. Growth in spending on video game content and accessories...

www.neogaf.com

 

[HeWhoWalks]

Again, the Pro isn’t going to be this transformative device many of you think it will be and GTA is eons away. Expectations really need to be checked.

The top selling home console is still at least $399. That is the issue. Everything else is secondary.

 

[Jaybe]

Shouldn’t Switch be second in units or am I reading this wrong???

Fixed. Thanks.

 

[MisterXDTV]

I will wait for the real estimates as usual...

Don't give a shit about percentages without numbers

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Damn. The HD console market is in tatters.

Not really, last year Spider-Man 2 launched and sold hardware

 

[Jaybe]

Not sure what you're expecting it to accomplish. It's not gonna make a notable dent, maybe a report-worthy increase for the first month or two at most.

I think this month is partly so low due to people holding off for a Pro. It’s release should make for a strong holiday, and I think a boost for game sales for those that want to see enhanced titles. I agree hardware will likely drift back to its normal pattern in Jan/Feb. The industry needs GTA6 more than any hardware revisions.

 

[HeWhoWalks]

I think this month is partly so low due to people holding off for a Pro. It’s release should make for a strong holiday, and I think a boost for game sales for those that want to see enhanced titles. I agree hardware will likely drift back to its normal pattern in Jan/Feb. The industry needs GTA6 more than any hardware revisions.

No. It needs prices cuts more than anything else.

 

[Moridianae]

Console needs a price drop. I know a lot of folks have been feeling the pinch of rising costs, which makes their current asking prices hard to swallow.

Hell, I just got the notification my homeowners insurance is spiking up by damn near 300 a year, with no claims or anything. It's absurd.

 

[Kotaro]

Elden Ring is still Top-5 in YTD 2024. unreal!!

It's an evergreen software

 

[HeWhoWalks]

Console needs a price drop. I know a lot of folks have been feeling the pinch of rising costs, which makes their current asking prices hard to swallow.

Hell, I just got the notification my homeowners insurance is spiking up by damn near 300 a year, with no claims or anything. It's absurd.

Exactly.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Well done Astro Bot

 

[MisterXDTV]

 

[Jaybe]

No. It needs prices cuts more than annything else.

I’m sure that will help but we’ve gone through several Black Fridays already with some steep discounts for price sensitive buyers, especially Xbox Series consoles. Hopefully the PS5 Slim gets a great holiday sale price this year to finally make it more affordable but I’m doubtful.

 

[Loomy]

PS Portal putting in the work

 

[HeWhoWalks]

I’m sure that will help but we’ve gone through several Black Fridays already with some steep discounts for price sensitive buyers, especially Xbox Series consoles. Hopefully the PS5 Slim gets a great holiday sale price this year to finally make it more affordable but I’m doubtful.

A Black Friday, temporary deal isn’t a price cut and Xbox consoles aren’t going to benefit much from one anyway. That leaves the Switch (which is enjoying its last years before the sequel), and PlayStation (who is carrying the rest of the weight). It needs a permanent $100 price cut.

 

[SlimySnake]

45% drop for PS5 is insane.

Yes, please keep porting games to PC. it's working out really well for your console sales.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Dead Rising rise might have to do with the PS5 Pro patch being announced.

It's a pretty massive difference.

Because AFAIK it never had a sale.

Astro Bot

Put those gifs in the raytracing thread! - Adds a lot to DRR

 

[AW_CL]

 

[UchihaMadara]

From Installbase:

 

[MisterXDTV]

From Installbase:

LOL again you need the 2 other consoles to match PS5 every month

 

[DenchDeckard]

A generation of cross gen games and poor performing, stuttering, buggy messes of games.

Luckily there is so many amazing mid tier games for us hardcore fans but the high end gaming AAA segment is in tatters. PS5 dropping sales by almost 50 percent is crazy.

Xbox is on life support. Theres no big games for Sony in Q4 so whats going to sell playstations? Cod Blops I guess?

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

What's the estimation of the number of PS5 units that have been sold in the US so far? If it's around ~25M that means the PS Portal sold ~750k units in the US alone. Not bad for a streaming tablet that supposedly no one wants.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Helldivers 2!

 

[Crispy Gamer]

For added context that drop in PS5 is in revenues so absolutely the Pro will help and this time last year they had the Spider-Man special edition console for sale

 

[Sooner]

Nice legs on Astro.

Spoiler

Pretty good butt, too.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

45% drop for PS5 is insane.

Yes, please keep porting games to PC. it's working out really well for your console sales.

PS5 is selling almost as much as the other 2 together.
Porting games to PC isn't the cause for this.

Last year was an abnormality for PS5 so this year was always going to be different. Plus, the price is still the same as in 2020.

 

[Elios83]

45% drop for PS5 is insane.

Yes, please keep porting games to PC. it's working out really well for your console sales.

Revenues drop vs a month with exclusive 599$ Spiderman 2 bundle counted last year.

It has nothing to do with a bunch of late and relatively low selling PC ports. This is a bullshit narrative.

It has to do with Sony's inability to cut the price by 100$ permanently as they should after 4 years on the market.

 

[Markio128]

A generation of cross gen games and poor performing, stuttering, buggy messes of games.

Luckily there is so many amazing mid tier games for us hardcore fans but the high end gaming AAA segment is in tatters. PS5 dropping sales by almost 50 percent is crazy.

Xbox is on life support. Theres no big games for Sony in Q4 so whats going to sell playstations? Cod Blops I guess?

I’d imagine that games recently released, like SH2, Fifa25 and Astrobot, will drive Xmas sales of Ps5, along with support from COD, and Horizon Lego.

Then add the spike for Pro sales in November, and I don’t think it’ll be as stark as you suggest.

 

[Sooner]

Again, the Pro isn’t going to be this transformative device many of you think it will be

Maybe. If you post this same comment 5 or 6 more times unprovoked, it'll make a difference.

 

[Elios83]

From Installbase:

As we you can see unit sales are still strong.

Edit: I wrongly made another post, this was supposed to be included in my previous reply.

 

[Radical_3d]

I wonder if console manufacturers will acknowledge the recession and take the hit on the hardware prices. Units don’t stop falling this year.

 

[Xyphie]

Their Steam MAU numbers are always so weird and correlate extremely poorly with player counts Steam games as provided by Valve themselves, which I'd assume track reasonably well with MAUs.

E.g. Helldivers 2 at #4 yet the game barely breaks into the #50 in terms of player counts these days, and massively popular games like Dota 2, GTA5 (incl FiveM) and Apex don't even appear in the top 10. Either Americans just play completely different games than everyone else or they are just wrong.

 

[Horseganador]

PS5 pro isn't going to do anything for PS5 sales other than a slight increase in November, what PS5 needs is a price cut to $399 even though at $549 it's the biggest seller by far, almost 2:1 to Xbox.

Astrobot has done incredibly well placing second.

 

[Kvally]

Time for a next gen console? Sony and MS are INCREASING the console prices.

 

[Fake]

45% drop for PS5 is insane.

Yes, please keep porting games to PC. it's working out really well for your console sales.

Or keep making remasters and remakes.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Software
EA Sports FC 25 was September’s best-selling video game in tracked spending, with double-digit percentage growth compared to EA Sports FC 24 during its Sep 2023 launch month. EA Sports FC 25 reached the highest US launch month dollar sales of any soccer game released to date.

Also, I’m pleasantly surprised to see how much football (soccer) has grown in the US. These EA FC 25 sales are very impressive.

 

[Javi97]

I really think that a PS5 Pro "Series S" with 30CU RDNA "4" could save the HD consoles. slightly better CPU a little worse GPU but compatible with PSSR and better support for RT the only complicated thing is compatibility. If you can sell this for $300 in its digital version it would be a resounding success.

 

[XXL]

45% drop for PS5 is insane.

Yes, please keep porting games to PC. it's working out really well for your console sales.

It's not that simple.

-45% is in hardware spending.

This year the digital PS5 had a significant increase.

They dropped for sure, but it's worse than it looks.

 

[Punished Miku]

45% drop for PS5 is insane.

Yes, please keep porting games to PC. it's working out really well for your console sales.

The key question is whether or not it's the chicken, or the egg. That changes the entire response, and the future of their entire business rides on them getting that question right.

Are console sales declining because they're putting games on PC? If so, that's your theory. Response is cut ports.
Are console sales declining anyway because people are transitioning to PC regardless? That's my theory. If so, they need to get their own store up and running on PC 4 years ago or they will have already missed the boat on building library and loyalty for the whole next generation of gamers. Two totally opposite approaches to the same problem.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

45% drop for PS5 is insane.

Yes, please keep porting games to PC. it's working out really well for your console sales.

Thats not what this is about... and not even insane.

A Spider-Man 2 special edition was released in September 2023, of course, boosting sales for that month. Rather than looking at YOY drops on their own, it's best to look at monthly average sales, especially for months without any major software or hardware release boosting sales.

Having said that though... sony must be OK with these sales numbers, would explain whey they arent doing any kinda aggressive price drops.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Xbox is on life support. Theres no big games for Sony in Q4 so whats going to sell playstations? Cod Blops I guess?

Christmas will sell it, but it will still have a YoY decline

Sony doesn’t care, next year will see a big spike thanks to GTA6