Jose Venegas June 27th, 2026 - 5:31 AM
Recently, the sales reports for the month of May have been released, courtesy of a Mat Piscatella, Senior Director and Video Game Industry Advisor at Circana, through a Bluesky thread. For those who may not know, Circana is a highly trusted and respected market research company that releases monthly sales reports for different sectors of the market, video games included. The thread provides a pretty extensive look at the performance of the video game industry last month, not only going over hardware and content sales, but also detailing a few trends in industry spending. Check out the thread below, as it also has some neat infographics to look at, mostly focusing on spending and content sales.
May 2026 U.S. Video Game Market Highlights Thread from Circana – 007 First Light and Nintendo Switch 2 Drive 3% US Video Game Spending Growth in May 2026.
— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) June 26, 2026 at 8:00 AM
The hardware section has no infographics for ease-of-viewing, but it does give valuable information to fans of specific numbers who want to know how their preferred gaming platform is doing on the wider market. Generally speaking, hardware spending has increased 38% when compared to the same time last year, meaning that consumers are spending more on video game consoles. This comes with an increase of average video game console price, now $502 compared to last year’s $440. After finally completing its first year on the market, the Nintendo Switch 2 is now officially the second fast-selling console in history (only beat out by the Game Boy Advance and its 6.5 million sold units), and this month’s sales have allowed it to not only become the best selling console of May, but of 2026 to date. This increase in Switch 2 sales also comes with a worsening performance by its competition, with both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series seeing a dip in sales, with PlayStation having a sales performance this bad in May 2000 and Xbox reaching a record low for the month.
The thread includes additional information, including the top ten best-selling games of May, as well as the best-selling games of 2026 to date. June’s monthly report is promised to include an analysis of the Switch 2’s first-year performance, as well as updates for this month’s categories. Please follow Mat Piscatella on his social media account for the monthly reports.
