According to the NPD Group's estimates, the U.S. spent a staggering $14.8 billion on videogames in 2012. This estimate includes physical software sales, used sales, rentals and digital hardware sales. Again, that's 14.8 billion dollars and that's not even accounting hardware and accessory sales.
Breakdown of the estimate shows United States residents spent $7.09 billion on new physical software, $1.79 billion on used sales and rentals, and another $5.92 billion on digital content, which includes downloadable games, DLC, subscriptions, mobile and social games. Oddly enough, the combined total was actually down 9% compared to 2011's $16.34 billion total take. The biggest culprit for the markdown was physical games, where it showed a surprisingly hefty 21% decrease from $11.25 billion in 2011 to $8.88 billion in 2012. Regarding digital game purchases, it showed that people were more and more willing to buy games digitally than owning them physically, as the digital sector rose 16% which translated to $5.92 billion for last year.
NPD Group analyst Liam Callahan states, "There were divergent trends when looking at content spending in 2012 as a whole, with a decrease of 21 percent in spending on physical content while digital content spending grew 16 percent; both formats combined for a total decline of 9 percent for the year."
With next-gen consoles looming on the horizon, I expect 2013 going to next year will bring in a ton of gaming dollars to stores. If so, it wouldn't surprise me if 2012's numbers get smashed along the way, too.
Source: GamesIndustry