Overview
- Circana’s U.S. retail tracking showed year-to-date hardware unit sales through August with Xbox down 33% and PlayStation down 25%, putting Xbox at an all-time low and PlayStation at its weakest point since 2013.
- Monthly hardware units for August fell 15% year-over-year to about 559,000, the lowest August total since 2013, with Xbox down 31%, PlayStation down 11%, and Nintendo down 15%.
- Average prices paid have climbed to all-time highs, with the average Xbox selling for $529 (up 26%) and the average PlayStation for $597 (up 20%), a dynamic that raised dollar revenue even as unit sales fell.
- Industry analysts link higher retail prices to a memory and component shortage caused by manufacturers shifting production toward AI data-center memory, which has raised console manufacturing costs and been passed to consumers.
- The November 19 release of Grand Theft Auto VI could boost sales but its impact will depend on product availability and those higher prices, and Nintendo’s Switch 2 currently leads the market in both units and dollars as overall U.S. game spending slips.