January 2020 NPD: Even Goku can’t rescue game spending

Gaming fans in the United States are over the current generation of consoles. And that has led to another month of significant declines in spending. Even the younger and more vigorous Nintendo Switch was down in terms of hardware spending. January was also light on major releases outside of the month’s top-selling Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. Here are the results from industry-tracking firm The NPD Group:

“January 2020 tracked spending across video game hardware, software, accessories, and game cards totaled $678 million,” NPD analyst Mat Piscatella said. “[That’s down] 26% when compared to a year ago. Late-cycle hardware dynamics for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as well as a lighter new release software slate drove the variance.”