US market spending on new physical game copies in the year 2025 has reached its lowest point since back in 1995.
Mat Piscatella, Senior Director and Video Game Industry Advisor at Circana, took to Blue Sky to share that spending on new physical game copies fell 11% in 2025 compared to 2024 in the US market. According to him, this is the lowest rate of decline since 2021 (-8%), and far better than the -28% recorded in 2024.
However, Piscatella added that spending on new physical video games also reached only 1.5 billion US Dollars in 2025, which is an all-time tracked low since a decade ago in 1995.
The analyst further mentioned that the peak for US new physical video game spending was reached in 2008, at 11.6 billion US Dollars. New physical video game spending has declined every year since. The sharpest decline was noted in 2024 (-28%), followed by 2012 (-22%).
Earlier this year, Piscatella revealed that the US video game market recorded total consumer spending of 60.7 billion US Dollars n 2025, reflecting a year-over-year increase of 1.4 percent. The growth was supported by higher spending across subscription services, hardware, and mobile content, helping the market recover modestly compared to 2024. Spending performance in December played a meaningful role in the annual outcome. Total projected US video game spending in December 2025 reached 7.8 billion US Dollars, representing a 3 percent increase compared to the same month a year earlier. Gains in hardware, subscriptions, and PC content were cited as the primary drivers behind the monthly growth, even as some categories posted declines.
Hardware spending showed particularly strong momentum. December hardware revenue increased 6 percent year over year to 1.2 billion US Dollars, despite an 8 percent decline in unit sales compared to December, 2024. The discrepancy was largely offset by an 18 percent increase in average selling prices. For the full year, hardware spending finished 9 percent ahead of the prior year, reaching 5.4 billion US Dollars, making it one of the strongest performing segments of the market.
