September videogame sales down 6% in the U.S., led by sharp drop in console spends
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U.S. videogame sales fell 6% year-over-year for the month of September, while sales figures so far this year were flat, according to a research report from Circana on Wednesday.
September sales came in at $4.37B compared with $4.68B for the same period last year, hurt by a 44% drop in hardware spending and a 3% decrease in content.
The bulk of sales as usual was in game content, which came in at $3.97B for the month. Hardware sales nearly halved to $251M, while accessory sales saw a meager 1% rise from the prior year to $217M.
So far this year, overall U.S. sales were $40.67B vs. $40.59B, helped mostly by content sales that rose 3% to $36.19B. For 2024, hardware sales saw a 30% decline to $2.55B, while accessories sales rose 7% to $1.93B.
When looking closely at hardware numbers, Circana analyst Mat Piscatella noted that the period from September 1 through October 5 saw the lowest monthly hardware spend total for a September month since 2019. He highlighted that the month saw sharp declines in Xbox Series (NASDAQ:MSFT) spending, falling 54%, while PS5 (NYSE:SONY) spending slid 45% and Nintendo Switch (OTCPK:NTDOY) was down 23%.
PlayStation 5 was the top console in unit sales and dollar terms, followed by Xbox and then Switch during the month.
Turning to game content, EA Sports FC 25 (NASDAQ:EA) was September’s best-selling video game, which reached the highest U.S. launch month dollar sales of any soccer game released to date, according to the research firm. Astro Bot was the second best-selling game of the month.
Among popular games that were released during the month were The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, NBA 2K25, NHL 25, Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.
Mobile game spending was $1.7B higher so far this year, while console content spending fell by $0.8 billion, as per Sensor Tower’s data.
The month’s top 10 mobile games by U.S. consumer spending: MONOPOLY GO!, Royal Match, Roblox (RBLX), Candy Crush Saga (MSFT), Last War: Survival, Whiteout Survival, Township, Brawl Stars, Coin Master, and Pokémon GO.
“The big story this month is Brawl Stars, which grew its US spend a whopping 64% month over month, moving up 4 places in this list. Brawl Stars held a groundbreaking collab with Spongebob Squarepants, which led to record-breaking US spend in a single day for the game,” said Samuel Aune, the gaming insight analyst at Sensor Tower.
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