German consumers spent €4.28 billion in the first six months of 2024, down 6% compared to the same period last year.
The report comes from a report by German trade association Game, based on data from GfK and Data.ai owned by Sensor Tower. This is the first market decline after several years of growth.
The sharpest drop in revenue was recorded by the sale of hardware, which fell by 18% year-on-year to 1.2 billion euros. The reason is the slowdown in sales of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles, as well as the Switch, which is entering the eighth year of its life cycle.
Gaming revenue, including full game and in-app purchases, fell just 4% to €2.6 billion, which is a decent result when you compare the number of major releases in H1 2023 to the 2024 line-up so far.
Online gaming services – which include subscription services such as PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass – were the only category to grow by 25% year-on-year to €516m.
The association's chief executive Felix Falk said in a report to Game that the German market “will not remain in decline for long”, pointing to the number of high-profile games due to be released towards the end of the year.
