US Gaming Sales Experience 4% Uptick in March, Driven by Mobile Growth

According to Circana's latest report, the US gaming market saw its fourth consecutive month of growth, with overall spending increasing by 4% to $4.89 billion. The primary driver of this growth was the content segment, which includes physical and digital games, add-on content, and subscriptions, and saw a 9% rise to $4.25 billion. In contrast, hardware spending declined by 32% to $391 million. Mobile gaming was a significant contributor to the year-on-year growth, accounting for 89% of the increase. The top-performing mobile games included Monopoly Go, Royal Match, Roblox, and Candy Crush Saga. On the console and PC front, Capcom's Dragon's Dogma 2 led the charge, with launch-month sales exceeding those of the original by over 11 times. The game's success was further underscored by its ability to surpass the combined lifetime sales of the original and its expansion in just one month. Other new releases, such as Helldivers 2 and MLB: The Show 24, also performed well, with the latter finishing in third place despite not including digital sales for certain platforms. The hardware market, however, continued to struggle, with every console experiencing a decline in spending of at least 30% year-over-year. The PS5 led the way in terms of dollar sales and unit sales, while the Switch was the runner-up in unit sales, and the Xbox Series X|S took second place in terms of dollars spent. The PlayStation Dual Sense Edge was the best-selling accessory of the month, with the overall growth in the accessory category boosted by increased spending on headsets and headphones.