Of course, there are still other parts of the report to address. However, the first part is that the Xbox Series has risen in March 2022 and Q1 2022 as the best-selling platform in terms of hardware dollar sales. In terms of units sold, the Nintendo Switch still reigns supreme, of course. The platform is certainly going to sell more units due to its pricing scheme. Video game hardware dollar sales dropped 24% when compared to a year ago, to $515 million. First-quarter hardware sales reached $1.2 billion, a 15% decline versus 2021’s first quarter. The decline in sales can be attributed to the continued console hardware supply challenges that the industry has had to face alongside the market returning to experiential spending. Xbox’s spike in sales in March 2022 set a new all-time March high for the platform. The console’s success certainly can be attributed to Microsoft’s ability to keep up with supply and demand. As Mat puts it ‘Xbox had a big month due to having a supply that could help meet some of the demand. Supply is still an issue in HW’. This, indeed, rings true when it comes to the lack of availability of Nintendo Switch/PlayStation 5 consoles versus the Xbox Series consoles. Moving on, we’re going to talk about the sales in the software segment. Elden Ring repeated as the best-selling game of the month, as dollar sales experienced double-digit percentage dollar sales growth compared to its Feb 2022 launch. Elden Ring ranked first in dollar sales among tracked titles across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. According to the NPD Group report, Elden Ring remains the best-selling game of 2022 year-to-date and now ranks second over the 12-month period ending March 2022 with dollar sales trailing only those of Call of Duty: Vanguard. Meanwhile, Gran Turismo 7 became the second-best seller of March 2022 while also ranking 2nd on PlayStation platforms. This new entry in the Gran Turismo series set a new all-time launch month dollar sales record for a Gran Turismo franchise launch. Gran Turismo 7 was the 4th best-selling game of the first quarter. As always, you can see the sales data below. From the software, we move on to the accessories. March 2022 spending on video game accessories fell 23% when compared to a year ago, to $227 million. First-quarter video game accessory spending declined 16% to $592 million. Predictably, the Xbox Elite Series 2 Wireless Controller was the best-selling accessory of March and remains the best-selling accessory year-to-date. Finally, we move on to the sales data of mobile games. Spending on mobile games has gone down 12% year over year, with a close to 25% decline for Google Play games revenue during that period, offsetting App Store games spending, which was down less than one-quarter of a percent. Despite this, U.S. mobile game spending continues to considerably outpace the NPD Group’s pre-pandemic projections, although signs of the space cooling off as consumers return to in-person affairs are beginning to show. As always, the best-selling mobile games of March 2022 include your suspects like Garena Free Fire, Genshin Impact, Candy Crush Soda Saga, and Roblox.
