— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) May 13, 2022 It was, overall, a solid month for the industry with more steady supply of new consoles (specifically the Switch and Xbox Series X/S) leading to a 16 percent jump in hardware sales year-on-year. Overall, players spent $4.3 billion on games, additional content, and hardware in in April, an 8 percent year-on-year decrease. The Switch was the #1 console, followed by the Xbox Series X/S. The still-supply-constrained PS5 was in last place in terms of unit sales, but #1 in terms of dollar wars, due to the console’s high price. Turning to software, after two months at #1, Elden Ring was finally bumped down a spot by Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. The only other new game to chart was Nintendo Switch Sports at #5. In somewhat surprising news, Kirby and the Forgotten Land held stronger at #4 than Gran Turismo 7, which slipped pretty hard from #2 down to #9. Here are April’s top 20 games according to NPD: And here are the top-10 best-selling games of 2022 thus far: A tumultuous year for hardware sales so far. It will be interesting how things ultimately shake out as hardware shortages continue to be an issue.
