The Nintendo Switch has officially passed the PlayStation 2 to become the second best-selling gaming hardware in the United States, now trailing only the Nintendo DS.
This comes from Circana’s November video game sales report, which states that lifetime unit sales of the Nintendo Switch are now at 46.6 million (we’ve asked for updated totals on the Nintendo DS).
But Switch sales are still slowing down. Per analysis from Circana’s Mat Piscatella, it was only the second best-selling console for November, following the PS5 in both unit and dollar sales, with Xbox Series consoles in third. Overall hardware spending was flat, with 15% year-over-year growth for PlayStation hardware off-setting a 29% drop in Xbox Series sales and 3% drop on Switch.
PS5 sales were driven in part by the release of the PS5 Pro, which accounted for 19% of all PS5 unit sales last month and 28% of all dollar sales. Notably, launch month dollar sales of the PS5 Pro were over 50% higher than launch month sales of the PS4 Pro, but unit sales were 12% lower. This isn’t surprising, and is roughly in line with analyst expectations, given that the PS4 Pro launched at $399 and the PS5 Pro launched at $699.
Spending on games overall was down 7% year-over-year to $5.8 billion, and overall software spending was down 9% year-over-year to $4.5 billion. Both of these drops were in large part simply due to Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s launch timing compared to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 last year. Black Ops 6 launched in October this year, elevating sales that month, while Modern Warfare 3’s November launch last year pumped that month’s numbers and made for a tougher comparable this year as Black Ops 6 sales settle down a bit.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was still the best-selling game this month, however, and is the second best-selling game of the year thus far. It trails only EA Sports College Football 25, which is now the best-selling sports game in U.S. history by dollar sales, and ranks among the 50 best-selling games of all time by the same metric.
Mario & Luigi: Brothership debuted at No.7 for the month, right behind Super Mario Party Jamboree at No.6. Both games’ position on the chart only reflects physical sales, however, so it’s possible the inclusion of digital sales could have pushed either higher.
A few other big new games this month aren’t reflected on the best-seller charts for various reasons. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl launched on Game Pass, which means a lot of people played it for “free.” But it debuted at No.6 on Circana’s Player Engagement Tracker Xbox Monthly Active Users chart, and it ranked No.9 for Steam MAUs, indicating it’s doing all right for itself. In a similar situation, free-to-play Genshin Impact launched on Xbox in November, and debuted at No.10 for Xbox MAUs.
And over on mobile, Pokemon TCG Pocket was the second best-selling mobile game by revenue worldwide in November, beating out the incredibly popular Monopoly GO. It was the sixth best-selling mobile game in the States for the month.
The top 20 best-selling games in the U.S. for the month of October, based on dollar sales:
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- Madden NFL 25
- EA Sports FC 25
- EA Sports College Football 25
- Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
- Super Mario Party Jamboree*
- Mario & Luigi: Brothership*
- Sonic X Shadow Generations
- NBA 2K25*
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Dragon Quest 3
- Astro Bot
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- Silent Hill 2 (2024)
- Undisputed
- Metaphor: ReFantazio
- Minecraft*
- My Sims: Cozy Bundle
- Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics
* Indicates that some or all digital sales are not included in Circana’s data. Some publishers, including Nintendo and Take-Two, do not share certain digital data for this report.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
