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Madden, Saints Row fails to prevent August revenues dipping 5% to $4.10 billion | US Monthly Charts

But NPD Group says total spending on video games is still ahead of August 2020

US consumers spent just over $4 billion on video games products in August – a slight dip on the year before, despite a handful of big releases.

The NPD Group reported that the month was also boosted by growth in hardware sales, thanks to improved supply of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Here's what you need to know:

The numbers

August 2022

Total spending: $4.10 billion, down 5% year-on-year
Software: $3.6 billion, down 6%
Hardware: $375 million, up 14%

Year-to-date

Total spending: $34.6 billion, down 9%
Software: $30.4 billion, down 10%
Hardware: $2.9 billion, down 4%

The highlights

While that $4.10 billion is down on August 2021, NPD said it was slightly higher than the $4.07 billion seen in 2020. Similarly, year-to-date spending is 3% higher than at the same point in 2020, when it reached $33.5 billion.

Hardware was the only category not to see year-on-year decline; as mentioned, this was due to improved supply of the newest consoles, which both experienced double digit growth when compared to the same time last year.

PlayStation 5 was the biggest selling platform last month in terms of both units and dollar sales. It's also generated the most dollars year-to-date, although Switch has sold more units.

Meanwhile, EA's Madden NFL 23 was unsurprisingly the biggest selling game of the month – the 23rd year in a row that the latest Madden has achieved this – and is already the fifth best-selling game of 2022.

Saints Row was the second biggest – not bad, considering it had only been on sale for three days before NPD stopped collecting data – while the PC version of Marvel's Spider-Man boosted that title 81 places to No.3.

Spider-Man was one of two software highlights for Sony, with Horizon: Forbidden West becoming the fourth best-selling game of the year so far, thanks partly to price promotion.

Spending on mobile games, which is factored into total software spending, fell 10% year-on-year according to Sensor Tower data. Google Play users were the biggest source of decline, with their spending down 22% year-on-year compared to iOS' 1.2% dip.

Spending on accessories fell 18% to £138 million due to a big drop in controller and headset sales. Year-to-date spending in this category is down 14% to $1.4 billion.

Here are the US Top 20 (based on dollar sales) for the period between 7/31/2022 through 8/26/2022, courtesy of The NPD Group:

1 NEW Madden NFL 23
2 NEW Saints Row
3 84 Marvel's Spider-Man
4 2 Elden Ring
5 1 Multiversus^
6 7 Mario Kart 8*
7 9 Minecraft
8 3 Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
9 6 MLB: The Show 22~
10 4 Xenoblade Chronicles 3*
11 8 Digimon Survive
12 28 Horizon: Forbidden West
13 5 Call of Duty: Vanguard
14 18 Far Cry 6
15 NEW Soul Hackers 2
16 12 Super Smash Bros Ultimate*
17 31 Gran Turismo 7
18 11 Kirby and the Forgotten Land
19 24 The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
20 15 Pokémon Legends: Arceus

* Digital sales not included.
~ Xbox and Switch digital sales not included.
^ Founder's Pack Edition sales only

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James Batchelor avatar
James Batchelor: James is Editor-in-Chief at GamesIndustry.biz, and has been a B2B journalist since 2006. He is author of The Best Non-Violent Video Games
In this article

Madden NFL 23

PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Saints Row (2022)

PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC

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