Video Game Physical Software and Hardware Sales Just Had the Worst November in the U.S. Since 1995

November 2025 was a shockingly terrible month for video game sales in the U.S. While we traditionally think of November as a huge sales month what with Black Friday and all, November 2025 was the worst November in video game hardware unit sales, and the worst in physical software dollar sales the U.S. has seen since 1995.

That’s according to Circana’s monthly report, which paints a pretty dismal picture of last month’s commercial performance. The industry in the U.S. saw declines across the board in hardware, accessories, and console spending for an overall drop of 4% year-over-year, at $5.9 billion in total spending.

Hardware

More specifically, hardware spending was down a whopping 27% year-over-year to $695 million, the lowest hardware spending total for November since 2005’s $455 million. Even worse, unit sales reached 1.6 million, which is the lowest November total since 1995’s 1.4 million.

And that’s representative of declines across the board. Xbox Series hardware sales were down 70% year-over-year. PS5 sales were down over 40%, and combined unit sales of Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 were down over 10% from Switch sales last year, despite this being a launch year for the Nintendo Switch 2.