It's time for another look at the monthly state of the gaming industry, courtesy of Circana (formerly the NPD Group). April, as you might expect, was a busy month for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and the world of hardware was, as usual, dominated by the twin titans of the PS5 and the Switch.
As ever, analyst Mat Piscatella has helpfully provided a lengthy Twitter thread full of insights and stats regarding April in the world of gaming. According to Piscatella and Circana, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor topped the all-format sales charts for April, with Dead Island 2 bringing up second place. MLB The Show 23 is in third, with Resident Evil 4 and Modern Warfare 2 in fourth and fifth respectively. It's a real month of numbers.
In terms of year-to-date software sales (i.e. sales from January 1st through April 29th), it's very much Hogwarts Legacy's chart, as you'd expect given how strong sales have been for that game. Modern Warfare 2 brings up second place, and Resident Evil 4, Jedi: Survivor, and Dead Island 2 are in third, fourth, and fifth.
Hardware-wise, the PS5 topped the dollar sales chart in April, while the Switch topped the unit sales chart. The PS5 has pulled forward on a year-to-date basis, but it seems that it's very much a two-horse race; the Xbox Series X|S is nowhere to be seen. Between that, the relative failure of Redfall, and the UK's opposition to Microsoft's Activision-Blizzard acquisition, it's arguably not been a great few months for Microsoft, by and large.
On the whole, "all segments of content spending" fell 6% on a year-on-year basis except non-mobile subscription spending, which has jumped by a princely 2% since last year. Hardware spending, however, has jumped 7%, making April 2023 the strongest month for hardware spending since April 2020.
Piscatella quotes Dennis Yeh of the mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower when discussing the mobile gaming industry. According to Yeh, Pokemon Go has fallen out of the mobile gaming top 10 chart for the first time since April 2022, but spending trends in mobile are "relatively stable". Top mobile games include Candy Crush Saga, Roblox, and Homescapes (yes, the one with the misleading ads from way back when).
If you want more nerdy stats about the state of the industry in April 2023, Piscatella's full thread is well worth checking out. Join us again next month for another look at Circana's industry data, which will no doubt be dominated by The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
