The NPD Group’s final report of 2022 has been published and finalizes the year’s top 10 biggest-selling games in the U.S. And perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, it’s Activision’s incredibly successful Call of Duty franchise that ended the year on top after the launch of Modern Warfare 2 in November. FromSoftware’s Elden Ring finished up the year in the second spot.
Modern Warfare 2 topped December across all platforms it was launched on, while Pokemon Scarlet/Violet finished just behind, and God of War Ragnarok is still proving a major commercial success ending December in third after having released exclusively on PlayStation a month earlier.
As for hardware numbers of the big three console manufacturers, Piscatella summed up the total unit sales and dollar sales of all three for both December and the whole of 2022 with a simple ranking on Twitter:
Today’s news comes via The NPD Group’s Mat Piscatella over on Twitter, along with a press release from The NPD Group itself. The latter focuses on a different takeaway, though, as the year actually saw a decline in growth from the record previous two during the COVID-19 era.
“U.S. consumer spending on video game content, hardware and accessories totaled $7.6 billion in December 2022 – an increase of 2% when compared to a year ago – bringing full year 2022 spending to $56.6 billion. Factors impacting 2022 spending included continued supply constraints of console hardware, a relatively light slate of new premium releases and macroeconomic conditions,” said Mat Piscatella, video game industry advisor, The NDP Group. “With a highly anticipated slate of new games and the reduction or even elimination of console hardware supply constraints, 2023 could very well see the market return to growth.”
Below you can check out the slides Piscatella included in his report wrap-up over on Twitter:
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