General Gaming May 2021 NPD: Resident Evil 8 opens first, Mass Effect 2nd, Returnal maintains 8th place (great hold), MLB The Show making bank, Pokemon Snap in fourth (great hold), Days Gone almost cracks Top 20, overall revenue UP from May 2020 despite more areas open

SaysWho? · June 14, 2021

Takes are all from NPD:

Quick hit May 2021 NPD takes - 3% growth in May following last May's 30% gains is impressive. Tremendous demand for new HW, supply will dictate performance. Subscription spending is hot, no evidence of cannibalization yet. Confidence growing in market ability to comp to 2020.
US NPD SW - Days Gone was the 21st best-selling game of May 2021, after placing 247th on the April chart. Days Gone was released to the PC platform via Steam on May 17th, 2021.
US NPD SW - Resident Evil: Village was the best-selling game of the month on both PlayStation and Xbox platforms, as well as across tracked titles on Steam. Resident Evil: Village generated the highest launch month sales of any 2021 release to date, and after one month in market the title ranked as the 2nd best-selling game of 2021 YTD.
US NPD Spend Trend - May performance experienced a return to YoY growth following a slight dip in April. Gains in Subscription, Console, PC and VR content spending drove the positive variance. May 2021 hardware sales gained 5% compared to the prior year.
May video game hardware dollar sales increased 5% when compared to May 2020, to $244 million. Year-to-date hardware consumer spending totaled $1.9 billion, a 36% increase compared with a year ago.
US NPD HW - Nintendo Switch was the best-selling hardware platform in both units and dollars during the month of May, as well as 2021 year-to-date.

May 2021 top sellers: