December 2022 NPD: Holiday sales boost otherwise slow year

The U.S. gaming industry finished strong in 2022 despite it being an otherwise slow year, according to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group. While the year overall was down slightly — in line with the common view that 2022 is a “bust” corrective year following the pandemic boom — spending on hardware and subscriptions boosted sales to a slight year-over-year increase for December.

“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,” said NPD analyst Mat Piscatella. “Video game hardware spending grew 16%, offsetting declines in both content (-1%) and accessories (-2%).”

In addition to the monthly sales, NPD also provided its year-end statistics, including sales figures for individual games in 2022. Total game sales for 2022 were down 5% from 2021, a smaller difference than the company has recorded in previous months. Hardware sales actually improved in 2022, which suggests that the supply chain issues from earlier in the year have eased.

Piscatella added, “The December growth brought full year 2022 spending to $56.6 billion, 5% below 2021 levels. Gains in spending in hardware and subscription content were offset by declines across other areas of spending. Factors impacting 2022 spending included continued supply constraints of console hardware, a relatively light slate of new premium releases, and macroeconomic conditions.”

December 2022 NPD: Top 20 best-selling games of the month in the U.S.

NPD tracks physical sales at retailers, but it also gets digital data directly from publishers. Not every company participates. For example, Nintendo doesn’t share its first-party sales and Activision Blizzard does not provide its Battle.net sales.

These charts are sorted by dollar sales — not number of units sold. And this is for full-game sales and does not include in-game spending.

The list of best-selling games — both for the month and the year (see below) — don’t really contain any great surprises this month. Several games have jumped back onto the list thanks in part to holiday sales and heavy-hitting franchises like Pokémon and Call of Duty continue to top the list. November releases, Sonic Frontiers and God of War Ragnarök, both continue to chart well.

Out of the new games released in December, Need for Speed Unbound has charted the highest, beating out Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion likely due to the latter’s console exclusivity. The Callisto Protocol also managed to make the charts. Despite releasing during the tail end of the year, the title launched without much competition.

Recently, Ubisoft announced that it was cutting back on game development, canceling three unannounced titles. One of the factors it cited in these measures was the under performance of its late 2022 titles, namely Just Dance 2023 and Mario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope. Both titles managed to make the best-sellers list for December, likely in part thanks to holiday sales.

December 2022 NPD: Top 10 best-selling Nintendo-platform games in the U.S.

December 2022 NPD: Top 10 best-selling PlayStation-platform games in the U.S.

December 2022 NPD: Top 10 best-selling Xbox-platform games in the U.S.

Full-year 2022 NPD: 20 best-selling games of 2022

Full-year 2022 NPD: Top 10 best-selling games on Nintendo platforms

Full-year 2022 NPD: Top 10 best-selling games on PlayStation platforms

Full-year 2022 NPD: Top 10 best-selling games on Xbox platforms