Video Game Hardware Sales Had a Historically Bad November In the US (theverge.com)

(Thursday December 18, 2025 @05:00AM (BeauHD) from the would-you-look-at-that dept.)

Reference: 0180413449
News link: https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/12/17/2330210/video-game-hardware-sales-had-a-historically-bad-november-in-the-us
Source link: https://www.theverge.com/news/846693/video-game-hardware-sales-november-2025-circana

U.S. video game hardware spending [1]fell 27% year over year in November to $695 million , according to market analyst company Circana. "This is the lowest video game hardware spending total for a November month since the $455 million reached during the November 2005 tracking period," Circana says. Furthermore, only 1.6 million units of hardware were sold in the U.S. in November, which is "the lowest total for a November month since 1995 (1.4 million)." The Verge reports:

> The rising costs of consoles probably didn't help. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series of consoles both turned five in November, but customers looking to pick up one of the consoles brand new are having to grapple with higher prices following price hikes this year. Those hikes have led to an "all-time November high" for the average price paid for a new unit of video game hardware of $439, Circana says -- a number that's up 11 percent from 2024. (In November 2019, the average price was $235, [2]according to Circana analyst Mat Piscatella .)

[1] https://www.theverge.com/news/846693/video-game-hardware-sales-november-2025-circana

[2] https://bsky.app/profile/matpiscatella.bsky.social/post/3ma6vnwvjmk2h

The PC will follow suit (Score:2)

by evanh ( 627108 )

It'll be interesting to know if people spend more on games over the next year while hardware prices are high.

Used (Score:2)

by fluffernutter ( 1411889 )

All the games I want for the next 10 years are available on the PS4. A long time ago I realized that used video game consoles were still as good as the day they were released yet they are a quarter of the price. My kids buy new games yet when they saw me playing my 10 year old game they complemented on how nice the game was. I guess graphics haven't come that far.

Re: (Score:2)

by Bruinwar ( 1034968 )

Yes, this is not knew. I look at my son's games on his desktop, with his RTX4070, 32 gig of ram, his 2K monitor, & I just do not see the graphics much better, if at all, than 15 years ago. I was playing one of the Wolfenstein games, a game that cost me around $20, & my nephew was amazed over the graphics & wanted to know what I was playing.

$1000 for a video card one would expect that the graphics would be advancing better. Fallout 4 was choppy using a RTX970. Upgrading it to a 2070 made it

Re: Used (Score:2)

by devslash0 ( 4203435 )

24 out of those 32 gigs of ram is probably needed to run Windows alone

Will violence drop? (Score:3)

by blue trane ( 110704 )

Anyone remember the fact that video games cause violence?

And it will get worse (Score:2)

by doragasu ( 2717547 )

With the AI sucking all GPUs first and now RAM and SSD chips, hardware will get more expensive. And software pricing does not help. Yesterday I was browsing my Steam wrapped, and I only played 2% of games released in 2025. With new AAA games costing 80â or more (because of game passes and the like), I prefer playing grames from my backlog or buying good old games in sale.

Seems reasonable (Score:2)

by Petersko ( 564140 )

There's just a stack of pressures against hardware sales. The press has been brutal.

- Higher hardware prices

- Microsoft seeming to lose interest in the XBox

- High profile flops

- Triple-A cancellations

- 5 year into current hardware for PS5/XBox - if you want one you probably have it

- Rising economic and financial uncertainty

- Incoming generations used to small format gaming

- Cost of living already too high for Gen Z, and not getting better.

I've got a Series X, and I suspect it's the last console I'll own. An

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