While millions have been self-isolating around the globe due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, and hundreds of game developers have been forced to shut their doors and attempt to work from home, the video game industry has seen a surprising surge in profitability. The NPD group has released its tracking of North American consumer spending for the month of April 2020 and, according to the firm, gaming hit a record high in profitability for the month, with Final Fantasy 7 Remake debuting as the month's biggest new release.
April 2020's total game sales amounted to $1.5 billion in tracked dollar sales this year, a 73% increase over 2019's $846 million. $442 million of last month's sales were dedicated to hardware sales, a whopping 163% increase over last year, while $622 million was dedicated to?physical and digital sales, leaving the remaining 384 million spent on digital cards and accessories. NPD video games industry analyst Mat Piscatella stated, “This is a new record high in reported spend for an April month, eclipsing the $1.2 billion generated in April 2008.”
The month's 20 top-selling games are listed below, however, it is worth mentioning that NPD only tracks?dollar sales in North America and only from participating publishers which excludes the likes of Nintendo's first-party digital sales and Activision Blizzard's Battle.net sales.
- Final Fantasy 7 Remake
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- NBA 2K20
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Resident Evil 3
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: Remastered
- MLB: The Show 20
- Madden NFL 20 [EA Sports]
- Red Dead Redemption II
- Just Dance 2020
- FIFA 20 [EA Sports]
- Mortal Kombat 11
- Borderlands 3
- Predator: Hunting Grounds
- Mario Kart 8: Deluxe
- Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order
- Persona 5 Royal
- Need for Speed: Heat
- Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot
From this list we can see that Final Fantasy 7 Remake debuted as the highest-selling game of April, even as a PlayStation 4 timed-exclusive. Piscatella also stated "Final Fantasy 7 Remake was the best-selling game of April and instantly becomes the No. 3 best-selling game year-to-date," and that it is "currently the best-selling game of 2020 on PlayStation 4.” Arguably even more surprising, Final Fantasy 7 Remake has?had the highest-selling launch month of a title in the series ever, surpassing Final Fantasy 15, which launched in November 2016.
Another title worth mentioning is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which continues to be the second highest-selling title of the month, with Animal Crossing: New Horizons falling to third place.?Call of Duty: Modern Warfare?has also gone on to become the fourth fastest-selling title in the US' tracked history. Even more interestingly, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered debuted as the seventh highest-selling game of the month, even despite its staggered launch on PC and Xbox One. According to Piscatella, “Three Call of Duty franchise titles finished among the top 10 best-selling games of April on Xbox One, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: Remastered, and Call of Duty: Black Ops III.”
Gaming spending has seen some record highs in 2020 and given the status of the world and major impending releases such as The Last of Us: Part II and Ghost of Tsushima, along with the launches of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, it may be likely it will see more in the coming months.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake?is out now for PS4.
Source: VentureBeat
