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