U.S. video game spending fell 10% year-over-year to $4.5 billion USD in July 2026. Circana Executive Director, Games Mat Piscatella published the results on August 20 2026, with mobile spending figures supplied by Sensor Tower. Content, hardware and accessories spending all declined, with mobile contributing most to the overall drop.
July also brought more pressure on the console market. Piscatella said the weakness goes beyond the difficult comparison with Nintendo Switch 2’s record 2025 launch, with higher prices now affecting PlayStation 5 and XBOX Series sales. Subscriptions were the only content segment to grow, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II moved to the top of the monthly game chart after its PS4 and PS5 port.
Console Prices Rise As Console Sales Fall
July hardware spending reached $282 million USD, down 29% from a year earlier and the lowest total for a July since 2020. Console sales fell 39%, and the average hardware selling price increased 16% to $542 USD.
PlayStation 5 led July hardware spending, and Nintendo Switch 2 sold the most consoles. PlayStation 5 console sales fell 6% year-over-year. XBOX Series fell 18%, and Nintendo Switch 2 fell 51%. Nintendo Switch 2 is still working against a strong 2025 comparison following its record U.S. launch. Even after July’s decline, its U.S. installed base remains 11% ahead of Nintendo Switch after the same amount of time on the market.
Piscatella linked the higher console prices to the RAM and component crisis and said they have significantly affected PlayStation 5 and XBOX Series selling rates. Nintendo Switch 2 pricing will move higher in the U.S. on September 1, 2026. Nintendo has confirmed its suggested retail price will rise from $449.99 USD to $499.99 USD.
Accessories spending fell 6% year-over-year to $178 million USD, the lowest July total since 2019. Racing controller spending fell 26%, and Cases & Organizers dollar sales increased 36%.
Subscriptions Grew As Overall Content Spending Fell
Video game content spending fell 9% year-over-year to about $4.1 billion USD in July 2026. Mobile was the biggest contributor to the decline. Console and PC content spending also fell. Subscriptions were the only content segment to increase, rising 6% year-over-year. That continued the pattern from June, when subscription spending moved in the opposite direction from the rest of the content market.
Circana’s content category includes full-game sales, add-on content, microtransactions and subscriptions. It doesn’t separate cloud gaming revenue inside subscriptions, so July’s 6% increase can’t be treated as cloud gaming growth.
Sensor Tower’s July mobile rankings had one major change near the top. MONOPOLY GO! remained first in U.S. consumer spending, and Royal Match remained second. Pokémon GO climbed 10 places to third during its 10th anniversary month. Sensor Tower’s Bryan Isagholian said Pokémon GO revenue increased 230% month-over-month as anniversary events and other activations ran throughout July.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II Led July Game Sales
Call of Duty: Black Ops II jumped from 67th in June to first in July after its new PS4 and PS5 port. Interestingly, Call of Duty: Black Ops made a similar move, climbing from 150th to fifth. EA SPORTS College Football 27 debuted in second, followed by Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced in third. EA Sports MVP Bundle (2026) ranked fourth.
Circana treated EA SPORTS College Football 27 and the bundle as separate chart entries. Piscatella said their combined dollar sales would have been enough to rank first for July. The bundle includes EA SPORTS College Football 27 Deluxe Edition and Madden NFL 27 Deluxe Edition. That distinction matters for cloud availability because the bundle itself isn’t a standalone game.
Halo: Campaign Evolved debuted in sixth, Splatoon Raiders ranked seventh, and Echoes of Aincrad: Sword Art Online entered at eighth. Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream finished ninth, and 007 First Light rounded out the top 10.
Most Of July’s Top 10 Used Projected Digital Sales
Circana’s monthly chart covers physical and full-game digital dollar sales from July 5 through August 1 2026. Mobile spending and digital add-on content aren’t included. Circana relied heavily on projected digital sales for July’s game chart. Nine of the top 10 games are marked as including digital sales projections, including games published by XBOX, EA, Ubisoft, Nintendo and IO Interactive. Echoes of Aincrad: Sword Art Online was the only top-10 game marked as including direct digital point-of-sale data.
XBOX is no longer part of Circana’s digital data-sharing panel, and Kotaku reported that EA recently left as well. Circana can still project digital sales when direct data isn’t supplied. Resident Evil: Requiem remained the best-selling game of 2026 through July. 007 First Light moved to second, followed by Crimson Desert and MLB The Show 26. Call of Duty: Black Ops II climbed from 130th to fifth for the year to date. EA SPORTS College Football 27 entered the YTD top 10 at tenth.
July’s Best Sellers Have Mixed Cloud Availability
Here’s a closer look at July 2026’s top 10 U.S. best-sellers and where you can currently play them in the cloud.
| Rank | Game | Cloud Gaming Availability | Cloud Dosage Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Call of Duty: Black Ops II | airgpu, CloudDeck, Shadow PC | |
| 2 | EA SPORTS College Football 27 | PlayStation Cloud Gaming, XBOX Cloud Gaming (10-hour EA Play trial) | Review |
| 3 | Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced | Blacknut, GeForce NOW, PlayStation Cloud Gaming, XBOX Cloud Gaming, airgpu, CloudDeck, Shadow PC | Review |
| 4 | EA Sports MVP Bundle (2026) | EA SPORTS College Football 27: PlayStation Cloud Gaming, XBOX Cloud Gaming (10-hour EA Play trial). Madden NFL 27: XBOX Cloud Gaming (10-hour EA Play trial). | |
| 5 | Call of Duty: Black Ops | airgpu, CloudDeck, Shadow PC | |
| 6 | Halo: Campaign Evolved | GeForce NOW, PlayStation Cloud Gaming, XBOX Cloud Gaming, airgpu, CloudDeck, Shadow PC | Review |
| 7 | Splatoon Raiders | Not available | |
| 8 | Echoes of Aincrad: Sword Art Online | Not available | Review |
| 9 | Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream | Not available | Review |
| 10 | 007 First Light | Boosteroid, GeForce NOW, PlayStation Cloud Gaming, XBOX Cloud Gaming, airgpu, CloudDeck, Shadow PC | Review |
Six of the nine individual games in July’s top 10 are currently playable through at least one cloud gaming or cloud-PC service. Splatoon Raiders, Echoes of Aincrad: Sword Art Online and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream are the three exceptions.
The EA Sports MVP Bundle needs separate treatment because it contains two games. EA SPORTS College Football 27 is playable through PlayStation Cloud Gaming and has a 10-hour EA Play trial through XBOX Cloud Gaming. Madden NFL 27 also has a 10-hour EA Play trial through XBOX Cloud Gaming.
Physical Game Spending Fell To A July Low
Spending on new physical software fell to $85 million USD in July 2026, the lowest July total Circana has tracked since 1995. That comes in the same month PlayStation announced it will stop producing physical game discs for new releases starting in January 2028. The decision has drawn sustained backlash across PlayStation’s social media channels from people concerned about ownership, collecting and access to used games.
Circana’s July data doesn’t establish that the backlash affected physical game spending. The record-low result does add fresh market context to the debate over how quickly console gaming is moving away from discs.
Nintendo Leads U.S. Physical Game Spending
Nintendo platforms accounted for 63% of 2026 year-to-date U.S. consumer spending on new physical games. PlayStation accounted for 32%.
Piscatella told Rebekah Valentine at Kotaku that XBOX accounted for just over 4%. A small amount of the remaining share came from physical PC editions, including collector’s editions. Those percentages only describe spending on new physical games. They do not represent Nintendo, PlayStation or XBOX share of the total U.S. software market, where digital sales account for a much larger part of spending.
July leaves console pricing as a bigger issue to watch than the Nintendo Switch 2 comparison alone. Spending fell across the market, subscriptions were the lone content area moving upward, and two older Call of Duty games returned near the top after their new PS4 and PS5 ports.
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