For Sony and Microsoft, 2025 was a difficult year, and current statistics show why gamer behavior is crucial.
How was 2025 so bad for the companies? Circana is one of the leading market research companies in the world. The firm has now published current sales figures for the gaming industry from the U.S. This particularly shows a negative trend for hardware manufacturers:
- The hardware sales figures in November 2025 were the worst since 1995.
- Sales of the Xbox Series have decreased by 70% compared to the previous year.
- Sales of PlayStation are 40% lower than the previous year.
- The combined sales of the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 decreased by about 10%.
Overall, U.S. gaming spending has decreased by 4% year-over-year to $5.9 billion. This spending includes not only hardware and game purchases but also the acquisition of accessories.
A trend among gamers is affecting the gaming industry
What kind of trend is this? Although 2025 was considered a strong gaming year with releases like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Hollow Knight Silksong, Battlefield 6, and ARC Raiders, gamers mainly bought and played older titles.
Circana reports that only 4% (!) of gamers buy one or more games per month. 33% of gamers buy fewer than one game per year. The recently released Steam retrospective for 2025 shows a similar trend: Only 14% of all Steam users’ playtime was spent on titles released in 2025.
This means that even in a year when a game like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 set a new record at the Game Awards for winning so many titles, gamers still spent most of the year playing old games.
How does this affect hardware sales? For Minecraft, League of Legends, Warframe, Fortnite, or World of Warcraft, there is no need to buy new hardware every year. If their favorite game runs on the console they currently have at home, they don’t need to purchase a successor—whether that’s the latest generation of PS5 or Xbox, or an upgraded “Pro” variant.
Why are gamers spending more time in older games? There are certainly various reasons for this. For one, games that have been regularly updated for years simply have more content than a game that has just been released.
Then there is the emotional attachment to a game. Gamers simply love to return to their favorite game. This is often further reinforced by the funding model. If someone has spent hundreds of euros on skins, DLCs, or in-game advantages, that can be additional motivation to play one game more than another, newer one.
Additionally, it should be noted that not every gamer likes the same games. If someone only plays dark action RPGs like Diablo, they probably have no interest in a new cozy farm game. A fan of real-time strategy, on the other hand, does not play the latest Call of Duty.
By the way, our colleagues at GameStar Talk have also dealt with this topic:
This was also made clear through a discussion in November of this year. The Twitch streamer shroud, who is primarily known for shooters, wanted ARC Raiders to be game of the year and called on his community to fight against Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Although it is very popular with many gamers, it meets complete disinterest from shroud: “Don’t let Expedition 33 win” – Twitch streamer shroud calls on his community to fight against the RPG hit
