The Nintendo Switch 2 was the best-selling console of 2025 in the U.S., both in unit sales and dollar sales, selling a total of 4.4 million units in the U.S, and continuing its streak of selling faster than the original Nintendo Switch over the same period.
This comes from Circana’s full-year reporting on the U.S. games market courtesy of analyst Mat Piscatella, and shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. The Switch 2 has been at the top consistently since it launched earlier in the year, amid a period of decline for the steadily aging PS5 and Xbox Series consoles.
Battlefield 6 was the best-selling game of last year, and the Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller was the best-selling accessory.
Overall, the U.S. games market reached $60.7 billion in sales for all of 2025, and $7.8 billion in December alone. That’s up 1% and 3% year-over-year, respectively.
In hardware, spending was up 9% year-over-year to $5.4 billion for the year, and up 6% year-over-year to $1.2 billion in December. The Nintendo Switch 2, as the best-selling console of the year, managed to sell 4.4 million units, 94% higher than the original Switch at the same amount of time after its own launch, and 35% ahead of the PlayStation 4. It also continues its reign as the fastest-selling video game console hardware platform, with Piscatella pointing out on Bluesky that the Game boy Advance remains the fastest-selling hardware platform overall after seven months on sale.
Over in software, December spending was up 3% to $5.9 billion, with subscription services seeing the biggest increase of 24% year-over-year. Overall full-year spending was only up 1% year-over-year, with subscription spending increasing 20% offsetting declines in everything else except mobile spending.
While Battlefield 6 was the best-selling game of the whole year, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 took the crown in December, despite its precense on Game Pass making its impact on Xbox much harder to tally. Fortnite saw the highest total active users across PlayStation and Xbox in 2025 of any game, with over half of all active users on the two platforms playing Fortnite at least once.
As for other games, the top five sellers for the full year should shock no one who’s been watching the numbers all month: after Battlefield 6 was NBA 2K26, Borderlands 4, Monster Hunter: Wilds, and Call of Duty Black Ops 7, again noting that Call of Duty was a Game Pass Day 1 title. The rest of the list was populated by a series of expected sellers, with some standouts such as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Remastered coming in at No.9, Elden Ring: Nightreign at No.14, Pokemon Legends: Z-A at No.17 (though Nintendo doesn’t report digital sales, so it’s possible this would have been higher), and Split Fiction at No.19. Grand Theft Auto V clocked in at No.20 as players await the release of Grand Theft Auto VI, probably this year.
And finally, just looking at December, standout games including Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which launched into No.7 overall for the month, and Flight Simulator 2024, which released on PlayStation in December and shot from No.114 in November to No.16 last month. Over on PC for December, both Elden Ring and Elden Ring: Nightreign saw jumps likely due to the new Nightreign DLC.
December 2025 U.S. Top 20 Best-Selling Games:
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
- NBA 2K26
- Battlefield 6
- Madden NFL 26
- EA Sports FC 26
- Pokemon Legends: Z-A*
- Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (NEW)*
- Minecraft*
- Donkey Kong Bananza*
- Ghost of Yotei
- EA Sports College Football 26
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
- Forza Horizon 5
- Red Dead Redemption II
- Flight Simulator 2024
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
- Kirby Air Riders*
- Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2*
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Full Year 2025 U.S. Top 20 Best-Selling Games:
- Battlefield 6
- NBA 2K26
- Borderlands 4
- Monster Hunter: Wilds
- Call of Duty Black Ops 7
- Madden NFL 26
- EA Sports College Football 26
- EA Sports FC 26
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Remastered
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- Ghost of Yotei
- MLB: The Show 25*
- Minecraft*
- Elden Ring: Nightreign
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
- Forza Horizon 5
- Pokemon Legends: Z-A*
- WWE 2K25
- Split Fiction
- Grand Theft Auto V
* Indicates that some or all digital sales are not included in Circana’s data. Some publishers, including Nintendo, do not share certain digital data for this report.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
