Circana: The U.S. Gaming Market in September 2025
Borderlands 4 is showing impressive results; the US market is on positive trend.
Market numbers
Video game spending in the U.S. rose 10% YoY in September, reaching $4.841 billion.
Positive results were driven by new releases, strong sales of the Nintendo Switch 2, and growth in non-mobile subscription revenues.
Mat Piscatella noted that September marked the fifth consecutive month of year-over-year revenue growth for the U.S. games market.
❗️U.S. annual inflation reached 2.9% in August 2025, which should be considered when comparing figures.
Hardware sales grew 24% YoY to $324 million. Nintendo Switch 2 sales offset declines for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X, and the original Nintendo Switch - all three consoles posted double-digit drops.
Total hardware sales for the first nine months of 2025 reached $3.18 billion - up 20% from $2.65 billion during the same period in 2024.
Content sales in September 2025 rose 11% YoY to $4.3 billion. Growth was driven by subscription services (+32% YoY), console game sales (+12% YoY), and mobile gaming (+4% YoY).
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Spending on accessories fell 10% YoY to $197 million. Fewer controllers were purchased overall, though DualSense remained the best-selling accessory, and the Switch 2 Pro Controller continued to lead for the year.
Remote Play device sales declined 9% YoY. However, more than 5% of U.S. PlayStation 5 owners purchased a PlayStation Portal.
Game Sales
The main release of the month was Borderlands 4. It achieved the best launch in franchise history, generating nearly 30% more revenue than Borderlands 3. It’s also the first game in the series to debut at #1.
September saw a number of notable releases: EA Sports FC 26 (#3), Ghost of Yotei (#4), Silent Hill: f (#7), Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (#8), Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles (#9), NHL 26 (#12), Digimon Story: Time Stranger (#13), and Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 (the compilation reached #14, excluding physical sales).
Ghost of Yotei launched with revenue comparable to Ghost of Tsushima. Circana points out that Tsushima’s 2020 release occurred during the pandemic, which significantly boosted its performance, making the sequel’s launch results, based on early data, quite strong.
Among September’s new releases, Borderlands 4 immediately became the third best-selling game of 2025 year-to-date in the U.S. EA Sports FC 26 ranked #15 overall, and Ghost of Yotei came in at #18.
NBA 2K26 became the best-selling game of the first nine months of 2025 in the U.S., surpassing Monster Hunter: Wilds.
MLB The Show 25 ranked as the second most successful entry in the series (and within its genre), behind only MLB The Show 21.
Top-grossing mobile games were MONOPOLY GO!, Royal Match, Candy Crush Saga, Roblox, and Coin Master.
Platform Rankings
On PlayStation, Ghost of Yotei lost the top spot to NBA 2K26, while Helldivers II continued to hold fourth place on Xbox.
Nintendo had a strong launch for the Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 collection. Interestingly, EA Sports FC 26 ranked above NBA 2K26 on Switch - do you think Switch 2 owners might prefer football over basketball?
On PC, charts were similar to the console rankings, with one exception: Digimon Story: Time Stranger took the #2 spot by revenue in September.