US Gaming Spending Sees 6% Decline in May

The action-adventure game Ghost of Tsushima claimed the top spot in the US charts for May, according to Circana. It jumped 70 places from its previous rank of 71 after its release on Steam, surpassing other popular titles. The game generated higher consumer spending across both physical and digital sales compared to the runner-up, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, although the latter's digital sales data is not publicly available. The top five games for the month included Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Helldivers 2, and MLB: The Show 24. New releases such as F1 24, Homeworld 3, and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door also made it to the top 20 best-selling games for the period. In terms of monthly active users, xDefiant debuted at number 5 on PlayStation 5 and number 6 on Xbox Series, while Fortnite led both platforms and Helldivers 2 secured the top spot on Steam. The previous month's top-selling game, Stellar Blade, dropped to 10th position. The total US spend on video game hardware, content, and accessories decreased by 6 percent year-over-year to $4.0 billion in May 2024. The decline in content spending was 3 percent, attributed to a 40 percent drop in console content spending, which was not offset by the 13 percent growth in mobile content spending, as stated by Mat Piscatella, executive director of video games at Circana.