July 2025 U.S. Video Game Market Highlights from Circana & Sensor Tower: A big month for Garena’s Free Fire helped lift video game content spending higher in July compared to a year ago, while Nintendo Switch 2 drove gains in hardware (while surpassing 2 million units sold along the way).

U.S. Video Game Market July Spending Trend - July 2025 projected U.S. total spending across video game hardware, content and accessories grew 5% when compared to a year ago, to $5.1 billion. Year-to-date spending is now 1% behind 2024’s pace, at $32.6 billion.

U.S. Video Game Market 13-Month Spending Trend

Hardware - Monthly hardware spending grew 21% when compared to a year ago, to $384M. This is the highest hardware spending in a July month since the $441M achieved in July 2008.

Hardware - Nintendo Switch 2 has now surpassed 2 million units sold in the US life-to-date. It is currently 75% ahead of the unit sales pace set by the original Nintendo Switch.

Hardware - Nintendo Switch 2 drove July’s hardware spending growth. July dollar sales of PS5 hardware fell 47% compared to a year ago, while Xbox Series spending dropped by 69%. Nintendo Switch spending declined 52% year-on-year.

Hardware - Nintendo Switch 2 was the best-selling video game hardware in units and dollars for both July and 2025 year-to-date. PlayStation 5 ranked 2nd across both measures and time periods.

Content - July video game content spending increased 4% when compared to a year ago, to $4.5B. The increase was driven by growth in the mobile (+7% in July vs a year ago, to $2.3B) and non-mobile subscription (+21%, $0.5B) segments, which offset a 9% drop in spending on Console.

Content - Year-to-date spending on non-mobile video game subscription services is now 19% higher than a year ago, at $3.6B.

Content - EA Sports College Football 26 was the best-selling premium video game of July, while the EA Sports MVP Bundle ranked 2nd. For the 2025 year-to-date period, EA Sports College Football 26 debuted as the #3 best-selling title with the EA Sports MVP Bundle placing 12th.

Content - Donkey Kong Bananza’s physical sales were high enough to place it 3rd on July’s best-selling games chart while ranking 20th for 2025 year-to-date. It was also the best-selling game of July on Nintendo platforms.

Yes.

Interesting, do you know the reason? Sad news overall.