The Nintendo Switch has officially overtaken the PlayStation 2 to become the second best-selling gaming hardware in the United States, behind only the Nintendo DS.
This follows Circana’s November video game sales report, which shows that Nintendo Switch lifetime unit sales now stand at 46.6 million (we asked for updated Nintendo DS numbers).
But Switch sales continue to decline. Analysis by Circana’s Mat Piscatelli shows that it was only the second best-selling console in November, after the PS5 in both unit sales and in dollars, with the Xbox Series consoles coming in third. Overall hardware spending held steady, with a 15% year-over-year enhance in PlayStation hardware offsetting a 29% decline in Xbox Series sales and a 3% decline in Switch.
PS5 sales were driven in part by the launch of the PS5 Pro, which accounted for 19% of all PS5 unit sales last month and 28% of all dollar sales. Notably, PS5 Pro launch month sales in dollar terms were over 50% higher than PS4 Pro launch month sales, but unit sales were 12% lower. This isn’t surprising and is roughly in line with analyst expectations, considering the PS4 Pro launched for $399 and the PS5 Pro for $699.
Overall gaming spending fell 7% year-over-year to $5.8 billion, and total software spending fell 9% year-over-year to $4.5 billion. Both of these declines were largely due to simply the timing of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 compared to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 last year. Black Ops 6 launched in October this year, boosting sales that month, while the launch of Modern Warfare 3 last November boosted that month’s results and provided a tougher comparable result this year as Black Ops 6 sales calmed down a bit.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, however, was still the best-selling game of the month and the second best-selling game of the year. It is second only to EA Sports College Football 25, which is currently the best-selling sports game in U.S. history in terms of dollar sales and ranks among the top 50 best-selling games of all time by the same measure.
Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood debuted at number 7 for the month, just behind Super Mario Party Jamboree at number 6. However, both games’ chart positions only reflect physical sales, so it’s possible that including digital sales could result in either game increasing.
For various reasons, several other huge recent games this month didn’t make the bestseller lists. STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl came out as part of Game Pass, which means a lot of people played the game “for free.” However, it debuted at No. 6 on the Circana Player Engagement Tracker’s Xbox Monthly Active Users chart and finished at No. 9 in Steam’s MAU rankings, meaning it’s doing quite well. In a similar development, the free-to-play game Genshin Impact launched on Xbox in November and debuted at number 10 in terms of Xbox MAUs.
And on the mobile side, Pokemon TCG Pocket was the world’s second best-selling mobile game by revenue in November, beating out the hugely popular Monopoly GO. It was the sixth best-selling mobile game in the United States that month.
The 20 best-selling games in the US in October, based on dollar sales:
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- Madden NFL 25
- EA Sports FC 25
- EA Sports College Football 25
- Dragon Ball: Spark! Zero
- Super Mario Party*
- Mario and Luigi: Brotherhood*
- Sonic X Shadow Generations
- NBA 2K25*
- Dragon Age: Guardian of the Veil
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Dragon’s Quest 3
- Astrobot
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- Silent Hill 2 (2024)
- Undisputed
- Metaphor: ReFantasia
- Minecraft*
- My Sims: Cozy Pack
- Marvel vs. Capcom fight collection: arcade classic
*Indicates some or all digital sales are not included in Circana data. Some publishers, including Nintendo and Take-Two, are not providing certain digital data for this report.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Her posts can be found on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Have a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
