Spending on hardware and software is down on last year, NPD has revealed. The industry tracker's focus is, of course, on the US market, and according to its latest findings, hardware spending in January was 35 per cent down year-on-year. In fact, total spending on gaming (including software and peripherals) was down 26 per cent over the same period.
Industry analyst Daniel Ahmed chimed in with some additional context, pointing out things like the proximity of the announcements of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, as well as the delay of major games as explanations for the slump. Ahmed also claimed that sales for the Nintendo Switch have bucked the trend and remain steady:
"An interesting takeaway from the US NPD report is that PS4 and XB1 hardware sales in Jan 2020 are considerably lower than PS3 and 360 were in Jan 2013. Next-gen consoles are around the corner but both are declining sharper than expected. Switch continues to remain steady."
In-house NPD analyst Mat Piscatella did confirm that the "Switch was the best-selling hardware platform of January in both unit and dollar sales," and pointed to "cycle hardware dynamics for PS4 and Xbox One, as well as a lighter new release software slate drove the variance" for the otherwise poor performance of the PS4 and Xbox One.