The U.S. Still has Money for Games: More than $4 Billion Spent in Q2

7 Oct, 2011

The U.S. is having a terrible economic crunch, but gamers haven’t received the memo. According to the NPD Group, their Total Consumer Spend report had some pretty high numbers for sales in the gaming industry, especially for a country that’s having financial woes. During the second quarter, the U.S. had $4.5 billion spent on games. Of that number, $1.44 billion was spent on new physical games, and PC games.

The rest of the breakdown is pretty predictable — about $1.74 billion was spent on second-hand games, rentals, digital downloads, subscriptions, DLC, and mobile games. The rest of the amount, $1.32 billion, was spent on hardware and accessories.

In comparison, NPD reported that overall spending increased slightly, about 1%, than from this same time period last year. NPD analysts say that it’s all thanks to alternatives to physical retail.

“While the new physical retail channel still generates the majority of industry sales, our expanded research coverage allows us to assess the total consumer spend across the growing number of ways to acquire and experience gaming,” said Anita Frazier, an NPD analyst.

Now we know where all the job security is. …or not.

Via GamesIndustry.