November 2025 was an incredibly horrible month for online game gross sales within the U.S. Whereas we historically consider November as an enormous gross sales month what with Black Friday and all, November 2025 was the worst November in online game {hardware} unit gross sales, and the worst in bodily software program greenback gross sales the U.S. has seen since 1995.
That is based on Circana’s month-to-month report, which paints a reasonably dismal image of final month’s industrial efficiency. The business within the U.S. noticed declines throughout the board in {hardware}, equipment, and console spending for an general drop of 4% year-over-year, at $5.9 billion in complete spending.
{Hardware}
Extra particularly, {hardware} spending was down a whopping 27% year-over-year to $695 million, the bottom {hardware} spending complete for November since 2005’s $455 million. Even worse, unit gross sales reached 1.6 million, which is the bottom November complete since 1995’s 1.4 million.
And that is consultant of declines throughout the board. Xbox Sequence {hardware} gross sales have been down 70% year-over-year. PS5 gross sales have been down over 40%, and mixed unit gross sales of Nintendo Change and Nintendo Change 2 have been down over 10% from Change gross sales final 12 months, regardless of this being a launch 12 months for the Nintendo Change 2.
What is going on on? As identified by Circana senior director Mat Piscatella, online game {hardware} has by no means been dearer, reaching an all-time November excessive of $439 per unit, up 11% year-over-year. The Xbox particularly noticed its common worth per unit improve by over 30%, maybe confirming one motive why people aren’t so eager to purchase Xboxes particularly.
With the Nintendo Change 2, Piscatella says he is watching its gross sales “very intently,” and affords this evaluation of its present scenario:
With six months available in the market, it stays the fastest-selling online game {hardware} in U.S. historical past. Nonetheless, a part of what was driving that was its availability to be purchased throughout its launch window. It has been extraordinarily uncommon to have such a profitable new gadget not undergo provide constraints going into its first vacation gross sales interval. Unit gross sales of Change 2 have been decrease than these of Change 1 throughout every console’s first November, however the worth factors are additionally fairly totally different. The typical worth paid for a brand new Nintendo Change in November 2017 was $309 (which, if adjusted for inflation, is roughly $405 in November 2025 {dollars}), in comparison with the $486 for Change 2 in November 2025. Maybe it’s a case of demand having been pulled ahead earlier within the 12 months as a result of individuals might discover them. Or maybe the mass market shouldn’t be as shortly adopting Change 2 because it did Change. Or maybe shoppers are wanting elsewhere for vacation gifting as the costs proceed to rise in online game {hardware}. Robust to say in the intervening time.
There’s one piece of {hardware} that is doing okay, and it isn’t what you’d anticipate: the NEX Playground. It was the third best-selling piece of online game {hardware} of November by unit gross sales, surpassing the Xbox Sequence, whereas the dearer Xbox Sequence beat it in greenback gross sales (the PS5 was first in each classes, the Change 2 was second). Piscatella calls the NEX Playground a “outstanding story,” noting that whereas everybody else is having a foul time, it simply had an excellent November by comparability:
November 2025 tracked unit gross sales at U.S. retailers for NEX Playground have been simply 7% under its complete tracked lifetime gross sales at retail via October. With a mean promoting worth of simply over $200 in November, sturdy placement at retail, and a few profitable influencer and viral advertising and marketing efforts, the NEX Playground grew to become one of many hottest online game merchandise of the vacation season through the month. We’ll must see how properly the tempo can sustain, as there are reviews that the NEX Playground is now largely bought out, with secondary market costs on websites like eBay hovering accordingly.
There might be a lesson right here that extra reasonably priced, household pleasant gaming units carry attraction throughout vacation gifting season.
Software program
Issues aren’t wanting significantly better on the content material aspect. Whereas Circana reviews that content material spending was up 1% year-over-year to $4.8 billion, that is with subscription spending rising 16% and a couple of% development in cell. Bodily software program gross sales, in the meantime, dropped 14% year-over-year to the worst November since 1995, the 12 months Circana started monitoring them.
Name of Responsibility: Black Ops 7 put the Name of Responsibility franchise again on high for one more debut month in November because the month’s best-seller, marking the 18th 12 months in a row a Name of Responsibility has launched to the highest of the charts. That mentioned, Circana reviews that the franchise noticed a double-digit proportion full sport greenback gross sales decline when in comparison with November 2024.
It is a bit difficult to make exact comparisons between Black Ops 7 and its predecessor, Black Ops 6, given each video games launched into Xbox Sport Cross, and Black Ops 6 launched in October final 12 months, not November. Nonetheless, Piscatella tells me that Black Ops 7’s full sport greenback gross sales completed under these of Black Ops 6’s final November. Moreover, Black Ops 7 is at present the seventh best-selling sport of the year-to-date, and Piscatella anticipates that its rival, Battlefield 6, will finish the 12 months because the best-selling sport of 2025. This is not the primary time in current reminiscence it has been overwhelmed, with Hogwarts Legacy popping out on high in 2023. Notably, that 12 months, Hogwarts Legacy beat Name of Responsibility Fashionable Warfare 3, which did not launch into Sport Cross, whereas Black Ops 7 this 12 months did, virtually definitely making its precise greenback gross sales complete decrease consequently.
It is price noting as properly that equipment spending was down 13% year-over-year.
Crimson Flags
That is shaping as much as be a reasonably bizarre 12 months. I requested Piscatella what he makes of all this, and what it means for the video games business. He identified that a lot of the story stays to be informed in December, and that it is potential shoppers are ready for higher offers nearer to the vacations. Alternatively, it is potential that financial elements and worth of consoles are pushing individuals to carry off on gaming purchases. Here is what Piscatella needed to say:
Retail spending had been holding up comparatively properly till now, regardless of the strain from larger costs we have been seeing available in the market. Extra prosperous shoppers have saved on spending up to now, which has made up for among the declines in spending from the much less prosperous parts of the market. Maybe it is a signal that these larger costs are starting to affect purchases of pricier objects, like consoles. Maybe not.
Nonetheless, if the crunch on RAM pricing continues, if we see rising costs on consoles and gaming PCs over the approaching months it might, theoretically, be probably devastating to the devoted gaming gadget market. Which might, in fact, have potential carryover results on the content material aspect.
I definitely see among the relationships between {hardware} unit gross sales and pricing we’re seeing within the November outcomes as a purple flag.
We can’t get the December and full-year leads to till January, which is able to inform us much more about whether or not the video games business is about to enter a lean interval, or if this November was only a goofy one-off.
November 2025 U.S. Prime 20 Finest-Promoting Video games:
- Name of Responsibility: Black Ops 7 (NEW)
- Battlefield 6
- NBA 2K26
- Madden NFL 26
- EA Sports activities FC 26
- Pokemon Legends: Z-A*
- Ghost of Yotei
- EA Sports activities School Soccer 26
- Minecraft*
- Kirby Air Riders (NEW)*
- Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment (NEW)*
- The Outer Worlds 2
- Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
- Donkey Kong Bananza*
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- Crimson Useless Redemption II
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Borderlands 4
- Forza Horizon 5
- Digimon Story: Time Stranger
* Signifies that some or all digital gross sales aren’t included in Circana’s knowledge. Some publishers, together with Nintendo, don’t share sure digital knowledge for this report.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Obtained a narrative tip? Ship it to [email protected].