U.S. gamers spent a record $56.9 billion on gaming in 2020

NPD Group publishes its December and full-year 2020 sales, showing record growth in U.S. games industry earnings.

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U.S. gamers spent a record $56.9 billion on games, hardware, and accessories in 2020, up 27% over 2019, NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella reports.

Hardware was up 35% over 2019 and generated $5.3 billion, the "most since $5.6 billion was reached in 2011," Piscatella notes. The Switch absolutely dominated the competition in 2020 as the best-selling hardware in 2020. In fact, the Switch's 2020 annual dollar revenues were the second-highest in the history of U.S. hardware sales.

"Only the 2008 dollar sales of Nintendo Wii were higher," Piscatella said.

PlayStation 5 was the second best-selling system of 2020 insofar as revenue earned. PS4 was #2 in actual unit sales, though, but the PS5 would've likely surpassed it if more stock were available.

"PlayStation 5 set a new dollar sales record for PlayStation hardware through each platform's first December," Piscatella said.

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War utterly dominated the competition despite releasing in the two last months of the year.

Black Ops Cold War was the best-selling game of 2020 in digital and physical game sales, and Modern Warfare took #2. Check below for the top 20 best-selling games of December 2020 and full-year 2020:

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December 2020 tidbits:

• For the first time in years, Grand Theft Auto V wasn't on the top 20 sellers list.
• Microsoft didn't have a single game in December's top 20 best-sellers
• Cyberpunk 2077 is #2 on December's best-sellers, and #19 in all of 2020 without including digital sales
• Nintendo dominated December's sales charts with 10 best-sellers

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Full-year 2020 tidbits:

• Microsoft didn't have a single self-published/first-party game on Xbox's top 10 best-sellers
• Every best-selling game on Nintendo's platform was a first-party game
• Sony had four first-party games on PlayStation's top 10 best-selling games
• GTA V was absent on full-year sales list
• Sony took 4 best-seller slots
• Ghost of Tsushima broke new ground for Sony, sits below Last of Us II
• FIFA 21's combined digital + physical dollar earnings were outpaced by many games including FF7 Remake, Avengers, and even Super Smash Bros. Ultimate