US video game spend up 3% in December, fuelled in part by 24% increase in subscription services | US Monthly Charts

US consumer spending on video games reached $5.9 billion in December 2025, an increase of 3% year-over-year (YoY). This rise was partially fuelled by an increase in subscription services spend, which rose 24% from December 2024.

According to new data from Circana, while PC, cloud, and non-console VR content saw a modest 6% YoY rise, console and mobile content spend, however, was flat.

Combined, there was a 1.4% uptick across the US game market, with Nintendo Switch 2 finishing the year as the best-selling hardware system by both unit and dollar sales, and it remains the fastest-selling video game console “in tracked history.”

Although overall spending on accessories fell 7% to $625 million in December, Nintendo’s Pro Controller was the year’s best-selling accessory. However, last month, it fell behind sales of the PlayStation Portal Midnight Black and the original PlayStation Portal, which ranked first and second, respectively, in December accessory dollar sales.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond – the only new release to enter December’s Top 20 of best-selling games – debuted at number seven. The biggest game of the month was Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, which topped the charts in terms of both physical and digital sales. It’s the seventh consecutive year a Call of Duty game was December’s best-selling game.

Across the year, however, it was Battlefield 6 that ended 2025 as the year’s best-selling game by dollar sales, ranking top on both Xbox and all aggregated storefronts on PC. On PS5, it was pipped into second place by 2K’s NBA 2K26.

Circana’s Player Engagement Trackers reports Fortnite once again reigned supreme in regards to total active users across both PlayStation and Xbox platforms during 2025. Interestingly, “over half of all active users of the two ecosystems engag[ed] with Fortnite at least once.”

Roblox, however, finished not just as December’s leading publisher in regard to digital retail spending, but indeed as the biggest publisher for the whole of 2025, with retail spend on the platform up 16% YoY.

Here are the top 20 selling games from the period December 1, 2025 to January 3, 2026, data courtesy of Circana:

*Digital sales not included for marked titles

^Digital sales on Nintendo platforms not included