Weekly Gaming Reports Recap: January 26 - January 30 (2026)
Two massive reports - Sensor Tower State of Mobile (2026) & Circana US December 2025 + full-year coverage.
Reports of the week:
Circana: The U.S. Gaming Market in December’25 + Full-Year 2025 Numbers
Games & Numbers (January 14 - January 27, 2026)
Sensor Tower: The State of the Mobile Market in 2026
Circana: The U.S. Gaming Market in December’25 + Full-Year 2025 Numbers
Market
By the end of 2025, the U.S. video game market reached $60.7 billion (+1.4% YoY).
In December 2025, consumers spent $7.765 billion on games and gaming products (+3% YoY).
Spending on game content grew 3% in December to $5.933 billion.
Consumer spending on subscriptions grew 24% YoY; PC, cloud gaming, and VR (excluding consoles) grew 6%.
For the full year 2025, spending on games increased 1% to $52.3 billion. A 1% increase in mobile revenue and a 20% jump in subscription spending offset declines in other segments.
❗️My educated guess is that we miss part of the mobile revenue due to the D2C growing popularity.
Roblox was the leading game by dollar sales in the U.S. retail both in December 2025 and across the full year. Spending on Roblox gift cards grew 16% in 2025.
In December 2025, consumers spent 6% more on gaming hardware ($1.207 billion).
Unit sales fell 8% versus December 2024, while the average console price increased 18%.
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Across the year, console hardware sales reached $5.4 billion (+9% YoY).
Nintendo Switch 2 led December hardware sales both in units and in dollars. The console also finished as the best-selling system of 2025. PlayStation 5 ranked second.
Nintendo Switch 2 finished 2025 with 4.4 million systems sold in the U.S. That’s nearly twice the original Nintendo Switch’s sales over the same period.
Nintendo Switch 2 is the fastest-selling home console in U.S. history. Its unit sales are 35% ahead of PlayStation 4 over the same time window.
49% of PS5 units and 66% of Xbox Series units sold in 2025 were disc-free models.
PS5 Pro accounted for 13% of all PlayStation systems sold.
The only segment that declined was accessories: down 7% to $625 million. PlayStation Portal was the top-selling accessory in dollar sales for December.
The best-selling accessory of 2025 was the Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller. It was purchased by 24% of system owners.
PlayStation Portal was bought by 7% of PlayStation 5 owners.
Over the year, Americans spent $3 billion on accessories, up 7% versus 2024.
Game sales
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 was December’s best-selling game. NBA 2K26 ranked #2; Battlefield 6 ranked #3.
The Call of Duty franchise has topped the December sales chart for seven years in a row. The last time another game ranked #1 in December was 2018, when Super Smash Bros. Ultimate led the chart.
Among new releases, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond debuted at #7 in December. However, this chart excludes digital sales, so the title’s real position may be higher.
Battlefield 6 remained the best-selling game for the full calendar year. This is the first time in the tracking history that the franchise has led the annual chart.
Battlefield 6 ranked #1 for the year on Xbox and PC, and #2 on PlayStation behind NBA 2K26.
For full-year U.S. sales, NBA 2K26 ranked #2 and Borderlands 4 ranked #3.
More than half of PlayStation and Xbox’s active audiences played Fortnite at least once.
Last War: Survival, Royal Match, and Candy Crush Saga were the top-grossing mobile titles in the U.S. in December 2025, according to Sensor Tower.
4 of the top 10 mobile games in the U.S. by revenue are Chinese-developed 4X strategy titles.
Platform charts
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, NBA 2K26, Madden NFL 26, and Battlefield 6 topped both the PlayStation and Xbox charts in December 2025.
NBA 2K26, Battlefield 6, and Ghost of Yotei were the three best-selling games on PlayStation across full-year 2025.
Notably, the PlayStation full-year top 10 includes more Microsoft-published games than Sony-published titles.
On Xbox, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is selling softer because it’s included in Game Pass.
Battlefield 6, NBA 2K26, and EA Sports College Football 26 were the best-selling games of 2025 on Xbox.
9 of the 10 best-selling games in December on Nintendo Switch were published by Nintendo. The only exception was Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds.
Nintendo also held dominant positions across the 2025 charts. The only non-Nintendo publisher to break into the top 10 was Warner Bros. Games at #9 with Hogwarts Legacy.
Battlefield 6, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II were the best-selling games in December on PC.
For the full year 2025, the top-grossing PC games were Battlefield 6, Monster Hunter: Wilds, and Borderlands 4.
Games & Numbers (January 14 - January 27, 2026)
PC/Console Games
RuneScape has generated more than $3 billion in revenue over its 25-year history.
Over nine months, from April 1 to the end of 2025, Capcom sold 34.64 million copies of its games. 96.4% of that volume came from back-catalogue titles, including Street Fighter 6, Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil Village, Monster Hunter Rise, and others. Monster Hunter Wilds reached 11 million copies sold, with the first 10 million achieved in its first month.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment sold more than 1 million copies in its first three months.
The developers of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon reported 1 million copies sold. It took the game just under three years to reach that milestone.
The developers of No Rest for the Wicked also announced that the game surpassed 1 million copies sold ahead of its full release. The game entered Early Access in April 2024.
StarRupture by Polish studio Creepy Jar generated more than $9M in revenue on Steam within a couple of weeks of Early Access. More than 700 thousand copies were sold, according to Alinea Analytics.
In its first week after launch, Quarantine Zone: The Last Check sold more than 500 thousand copies.
Total War: Warhammer 40,000 was added to Steam wishlists by more than 1 million users.
Highguard launched with 98 thousand CCU on Steam alone. One day later, the game dropped to 17.8 thousand CCU and has a 33% positive review rate on Steam.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has received the highest number of “Game of the Year” awards in history, with 436 wins. The previous record belonged to Elden Ring with 429 awards.
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Mobile Games
Games published by SayGames have been downloaded more than 8 billion times. The company shared the milestone on LinkedIn.
Hill Climb Racing reached 2 billion installs. The game launched in 2012 and spawned an entire franchise, including two sequels, a LEGO spin-off, and versions for Apple Arcade and browsers.
Platforms
Nintendo Switch 2 sales in Japan reached 3.7 million units in 2025. That represents half of all home console sales in the country. Nintendo Switch 2 became the fastest-selling console in Japan.
UGC
12.8 million users watched Bruno Mars’ concert simultaneously in Steal a Brainrot on Roblox. This is a record for a single-artist performance. However, in 2024, a Fortnite concert featuring Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Juice Wrld, and Ice Spice attracted 14.3 million concurrent viewers.
Sensor Tower: The State of the Mobile Market in 2026
Revenue data is shown as Gross (includes store fees and taxes). Revenue from Android stores in China and D2C revenue are not included.
App market
In 2025, apps were downloaded 149 billion times. This is 0.8% more than last year.
$167 billion was generated in revenue by all apps on iOS and Google Play. Year-over-year growth was 10.6%.
Users spent 5.3 trillion hours in apps in 2025 (+3.8% YoY).
The average user spent 3.6 hours per day in apps in 2025 (+1.1% YoY).
The average user used 34 apps per month (+5.4% YoY). Daily, around 10 apps are used.
Mobile macro trends
India, the US, and Brazil were the leaders in app downloads in 2025. India remains far ahead in first place with 25.5 billion installs.
By revenue, the US is the clear leader ($59 billion in 2025). China ranks second ($22.1 billion), but Sensor Tower only accounts for iOS revenue.
By time spent in apps, India is in first place. Indonesia ranks second (which may surprise some), followed by the US.
For the first time in Sensor Tower’s tracking history, users spent more money in non-gaming apps than in games.
❗️Two things are worth noting here. First, if we include app revenue outside the App Store and Google Play, apps have been earning more than games for quite some time. Second, D2C gaming revenue is not included, so part of IAP revenue is not attributed here.
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Non-gaming app segment analysis
Social networks, AI apps, and utilities lead by downloads.
Despite the AI boom in 2025, AI was not the fastest-growing segment by downloads. Short dramas were, with downloads up 278% YoY. AI apps grew by 148%.
By revenue, social media, streaming apps, and dating services dominate.
AI apps lead in revenue growth (+254% YoY). Short dramas are second (+115%), followed by media editing apps (+71% YoY).
By hours spent, social networks dominate by a wide margin. Users spent more than 2.5 trillion hours in social apps in 2025 (over 90 minutes per user per day).
By absolute installs and IAP revenue, AI apps are in the lead. By time spent, social networks continue to grow strongly.
In 2025, three new apps surpassed $1 billion in IAP revenue: ChatGPT, CapCut, and WeTV. There are no games on this list. The last time this happened was in 2022.
The share of apps with high IAP revenue has been growing rapidly year after year.
The number of “billionaire” apps remains roughly flat in games, while non-gaming apps saw strong growth in 2025 (+33%).
Market saturation: games vs non-gaming apps
Overall, in 2025, the top 1% of apps generated 92.2% of all IAP revenue. That equals $154 billion generated by the top 1%, versus $13.1 billion shared among the remaining 99%.
At the same time, the share of revenue generated outside the top 1% in games has been growing each year and reached 7.5% in 2025. In non-gaming apps, this share has stagnated over the past four years.
State of the gaming market
IAP revenue in 2025 reached $81.75 billion (+1.3% YoY, despite the growing popularity of D2C models). Downloads declined for the second year in a row, falling 7.2% in 2025 to 50.41 billion. However, time spent in games continued to grow, up 0.9% in 2025.
Most IAP revenue growth came from Europe.
Hybrid-casual games were the only segment to grow in IAP revenue. All other segments remained flat.
Hypercasual games were the only segment that did not see a decline in downloads in 2025. All other segments were in the negative zone. Users also spent more time in hypercasual games, including in the largest markets.
Strategy, shooter, and puzzle games were the genres with the strongest IAP revenue growth in 2025. This was driven by titles such as Last War: Survival, Whiteout Survival, Royal Match, Gossip Harbor, and Delta Force.
Strategies were the only genre to grow in downloads in Asia. Geolocation games performed relatively well and remained on a plateau. The steepest download declines were seen in action, RPG, lifestyle games, simulators, and racing games.
By time spent in games, simulators lead. Puzzles rank second, followed by strategy games. Users in Asia played noticeably less overall, while action and shooter games faced a downturn in Europe.
Advertising in mobile games
Sensor Tower highlights that publishers increasingly rely on video creatives (share grew to 53.7%) and Playables (share grew to 13.3%, nearly doubling).
The share of rewarded ads increased significantly, reaching 17.7% (+53.9%).
AppLovin (27.3% market share) and Mintegral (16%) increased their share of the in-app advertising market in 2025. AdMob lost some ground but remains the leader with a 33% market share.
In social traffic, Instagram (35.6% share) and Facebook (33.6%) significantly strengthened their positions. TikTok, according to Sensor Tower, declined to 12.7% (nearly halving). A similar trend was observed for YouTube, which dropped to 12%.
For lifestyle apps and puzzle games worldwide (excluding Latin America), the share of UA spend is higher than their share of IAP revenue. Action and strategy games show a more balanced picture. Casino games consistently generate a higher share of revenue than their share of UA across countries.
Retention in the top 25 games by revenue
❗️Although Sensor Tower shows retention metrics for the top 25 games by revenue, average retention varies significantly by genre and subgenre.
Almost all segments show weaker Day 1 and Day 7 retention. Midcore games outperform other segments on these and all other retention windows.
Leading hybrid-casual games have already surpassed hypercasual leaders at the D1 retention level, and the gap widens even further by Day 7.
Leaders in the midcore genre retain users significantly better than other genres. However, their Day 7 to Day 30 retention is nearly the same as that of casual games.
While the average D7 retention among the top 25 casual games in December 2025 was 14.9%, Sensor Tower reports examples such as Tasty Travel with 22%.
The top 25 midcore games retain 4-5% of their audience over a one-year period. This figure is declining, while it remains more stable in other genres.
Publishers by country
Asian publishers saw the largest revenue growth in 2025, up $2.58 billion, largely driven by Century Games. European studios also grew, adding $0.36 billion.
Publishers from the Middle East (-$0.18 billion) and the US (-$1.78 billion) has revenue decline in 2025.
Tencent is the global leader in IAP revenue, even without counting Miniclip and Supercell, which were tracked separately.
Games live-ops
In 2025, live-ops shifted more toward progression and socialization, and slightly away from pure monetization.
Developers relied less on standard offers and used gacha mechanics of various types much more frequently. This is interesting given the strong regulatory pressure on such mechanics in many countries.
The popularity of milestone-based events grew significantly in 2025, partially replacing traditional quests. Albums also became more popular, along with the addition of new modes that differ from core gameplay.
Nearly all types of social mechanics grew in 2025. Players enjoy playing together, both competing and cooperating toward shared goals.
The growing popularity of PvE mechanics stands out in particular. This appears to echo trends seen on the PC and console market, where PvE-driven titles became one of the main growth drivers in 2025.
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Mobile games and franchises
Mobile devices remain one of the main drivers of installs for franchises worldwide.
Sensor Tower does not show revenue distribution here (likely because the charts are less visually compelling), but highlights the most successful mobile IPs by revenue: Monopoly, Pokémon, and FIFPro (the organization that licenses football players).
Web
Roblox accounts for 74% of all global visits among websites where users can play games. 90% of those visits come from direct traffic (typed URLs or bookmarks), and only 5% are organic.
Despite this popularity, the Roblox store ranked second. The top spot belongs to store.supercell.com with 1.7 billion visits.
To access data for other verticals and explore interactive charts, follow the link.
Incredibly thorough breakdown. That Roblox vs Fortnite concert comparison is telling, Bruno Mars solo at 12.8M fell short of that multi-artist lineup at 14.3M but still crushed most traditional livestream events. Teh platform dynamics for virtual concerts are maturing fast and I've noticed even brands are now treating these as tier-1 media buys rather than experimenal activations.