Thursday, December 18th 2025
US Gaming Hardware Sales Reach 35-Year Low As Prices Soar
Ask any gamer, and you'll hear anecdotes of sky-high hardware prices, especially with the recent developments in the system memory market, but now we also have data to back up those conclusions, thanks to Matt Piscatella and Circana Retail Tracking Service. Piscatella, the Senior Director and Video Game Industry Thought Leader at Circana, recently posted a graph on Bluesky revealing the average monthly US video game hardware unit sales and sale price per unit in November of every year starting in 1995.
According to the data, gaming hardware sales are at the lowest they've been since November 1995, sitting at 1.6 million sales, down from 3.39 million units in November 2019. Meanwhile, the average price per unit is at an all-time high, with the price per unit coming in at $439, up from a mere $235 in November 2019. Compared to November 2024 alone, video game hardware spending declined by a whopping 27%, compared to a 1% increase in sales volume for gaming content and a 13% decline in video game accessory sales. The year-over-year sales reportedly still saw a 10% increase. It's worth noting that this data isn't necessarily representative of global sales or pricing trends, since only US sales were measured. At the same time, it seems as though subscriptions are paying off, with the data analyst claiming a 16% increase in subscription spending since November 2024. In general, it seems as though gamers are spending similar amounts of money on game content as they were just a year prior.
Source:
Matt Piscatella on Bluesky
According to the data, gaming hardware sales are at the lowest they've been since November 1995, sitting at 1.6 million sales, down from 3.39 million units in November 2019. Meanwhile, the average price per unit is at an all-time high, with the price per unit coming in at $439, up from a mere $235 in November 2019. Compared to November 2024 alone, video game hardware spending declined by a whopping 27%, compared to a 1% increase in sales volume for gaming content and a 13% decline in video game accessory sales. The year-over-year sales reportedly still saw a 10% increase. It's worth noting that this data isn't necessarily representative of global sales or pricing trends, since only US sales were measured. At the same time, it seems as though subscriptions are paying off, with the data analyst claiming a 16% increase in subscription spending since November 2024. In general, it seems as though gamers are spending similar amounts of money on game content as they were just a year prior.
37 Comments on US Gaming Hardware Sales Reach 35-Year Low As Prices Soar
At some point game publishers will have to realize that they need to optimize new titles to run on older hardware because in a couple of years, almost everyone will be running on older gear.
The days of needing a $2000-3000+ RTX --90 series card to run a POS title like Borderlands is coming to an end.
The consoles sit idle doing nothing. My kids don't even use it. They have Nintendo switches they all play on. Cause the first party titles on them are appealing.
"The world economy isn't in a very happy state right now, and people in general wouldn't like to spend as much as US$ 1900 to get the most out of a $50 game title."
This is from Jul '08, but oddly fits 17 years later. The difference being recession back then vs. inflation, thus games cost $80, and market uncertainty with a volatile job market. But a 5090 will set you back that much.
A decline isn't surprising at all because upgrades just aren't worth the amount of performance uplifts for the cost, GPU's used to be a 30-50% or more performance jump per gen, now it's like 5-10%.
And a majority of AAA games just aren't worth $60-100 anymore, that is evident when some AAA studios are in financial trouble.
Also because many PC games are terribly unoptimized for the hardware most people have, many aren't going to buy new hardware that some games require to run smoothly, definitely not when RAM costs more than a GPU.
Game publishers will need to be forced to optimize their games before launching them, not just rushing a buggy title out that needs to run upscaling to achieve a decent frame rate.
www.techpowerup.com/343313/next-gen-hbm-targets-embedded-gpu-cores
wccftech.com/video-games-industry-is-facing-a-fundamental-realignment-june-2025/
www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/epic-boss-tim-sweeney-says-unreal-engine-6-will-be-a-metaverse-joining-fortnite-and-other-unreal-games-including-an-upcoming-persistent-universe-in-development-with-disney/
In tech prices are soaring and generational improvements have slowed to a crawl. Software is actively going backwards, Windows 11, UE5 etc
This will be why nvidia are cutting production, not enough demand...
It is absolutely not true people want connection all the time - it is what is pushed because it allows all those companies to closely monitor and direct how you spend money. And because companies have offered a few dozen titles with crossplay and a cloud service, they think they have 'networked gaming' now? Righto
This is some hilarious bullshit lol
A persistent universe in dev with Disney. So what? Do they really think I want Donald Duck quacking in my ear at any given time? I'm sure they're going to stream all of that too, right? Get ready for your super duper latency, stuttery world of advertisements! I'm sure people will be waiting in line.
www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/there-has-to-be-a-way
I always think back to that comment the Netflix CEO made about his son happily watching Lawrence of Arabia on his smartphone. Shifting baselines, etc etc...
If NVIDIA isn't making GPUs for gaming they're not making them for GeForce NOW. I think most of the people who are interested in such a service have already signed up for it by now, and it's not like old GPUs and games have just disappeared, either.
Very interesting indeed, but with current RAM pricing who is going to build a new PC? Even with MB-CPU "only" upgrade who is going to buy the old combo? The situation for now looks worse than the GPU bubble. :kookoo:
PS To avoid unnecessary comments, it's a problem for all new builds, not only Intel.
A few will check paid offer price chart pages. I assume most just buy the in budget prebuild with crappy parts from certain brands. the purchase price is the only indicator and the fancy labels on it.
-- The Video game content field is insane. The hardware money spend field implies people should spend more there.
GeForce Now basically runs the PC versions of games you own on Steam or other authorized platforms, giving the developer control whether they want their game playable on GFN or not. Also, Nvidia's heavily invested in marketing it, without overpromising. Helps there's a free tier too, even if it's an hour and has a queue... for casuals, it works.
Low income"proud F2P" gacha players love it ;)