U.S. video game spending grew 11% in August, says Circana

Circana analyst Mat Piscatella said that August video game spending in the U.S. grew 11% compared to a year ago, with Take-Two’s (TTWO) “NBA 2K26,” mobile spending, and Nintendo Switch 2 (NTDOY) sales helping lift total projected spending across video game hardware, content and accessories to $4.7B. The release of NBA 2K26 in the August tracking month as compared to September a year ago, a 6% increase in mobile video game spending, and the continued strong Nintendo Switch 2 launch fueled August growth. Monthly hardware spending increased by 32% when compared to a year ago, to $312M. Nintendo Switch 2 sales were able to offset double-digit percentage declines across each of PlayStation 5 (SONY), Xbox Series (MSFT) and Switch. With 2.4M units sold launch-to-date over its first 3 months market, Nintendo Switch 2 is now 5% ahead of the previous record setting pace of PlayStation 4, which sold 2.2M units during the 3 months ending January 2014. Nintendo Switch 2 unit sales are trending 77% ahead the time-aligned sales of the original Nintendo Switch. Year-to-date video game hardware spending has grown 20% versus a year ago, reaching $2.9B. Unit sales are up 6.5% year-on-year, with the average selling price increasing by 12.3%, to $453 per unit sold. August video game content spending increased 11% when compared to a year ago, to $4.2B. The growth was partially driven by a 21% jump in Console content spending, aided by the shift of NBA 2K26 to the August tracking period from September a year ago. Year-to-date spending on non-mobile video game subscription services is now 19% higher than a year ago, at $3.6B. Other top-selling premium games in August in the U.S. include EA‘s (EA) “Madden NFL 26,” Take-Two’s “Mafia: The Old Country,” Konami’s (KONMY) “Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater,” EA’s “EA Sports College Football 26,” Microrsoft’s Gears of War: Reloaded,” and Nintendo’s “Donkey Kong Bananza.”