Even with such an incredible slate of releases this year, video game hardware sales in the United States continue to achieve record new lows. Circana senior director and analyst Mat Piscatella reports that hardware spending in August 2026 fell three percent year over year to $302 million. Year-long spending reached $2.5 billion, down 11 percent from 2025.
But that’s not all. PlayStation hardware sales fell 11 percent year-over-year, while Xbox dropped a whopping 31 percent. These are the lowest for both companies in the month since 2013 and 2020, respectively. Of course, even Nintendo Switch 2 sales are down 15 percent, but overall hardware unit sales hit 559,000. That’s a 15 percent drop compared to last year – the industry’s lowest August since 2013.
What’s going on? Besides the usual drop in demand later in a console generation, price hikes. Piscatella notes that the average price for new hardware reached $541, beating the lifetime record of $476 (from last year, conveniently enough). While PS5 dollar sales rose 17 percent year-over-year, Xbox Series X/S and Switch 2 dropped 13 percent.
Despite this, the Switch 2 still led the month and 2026 to date in unit and dollar sales, with the PS5 in second place. Suffice it to say, Grand Theft Auto 6’s launch could be a difference maker, though it remains to be seen if it can offset this year’s hardware decline.
