PlayStation 5 Led July Hardware Sales as Xbox and Switch 2 Fell
Sony's PlayStation 5 led the US hardware market in July 2026, even though its unit sales slipped 6% from July 2025, according to Circana. Circana is the market research firm that tracks video game sales in the United States, and its monthly reports are the main public record of what players buy.
Unit sales count the number of consoles sold, not the money spent on them. On that measure, Microsoft's Xbox Series consoles fell 18% in the same year-on-year comparison. Nintendo's Switch 2, the successor to the original Switch, dropped 51%. The Switch 2 launched in June 2025, so July 2025 was one of its early months on sale, which makes the comparison a tough one.
Earlier figures tell a similar story. Circana's May 2026 results, reported by Wccftech, showed the Switch 2 helping drive growth in US video game spending that month. The same report said PlayStation and Xbox had their worst May for sales in more than two decades. Mat Piscatella, Circana's senior director and video game industry advisor, is the firm's public voice on these numbers.
Circana's data covers hardware, which is the consoles themselves, and software, which is the games and add-on content. Hardware sales often lead software spending, because a player needs a machine before buying games for it. The monthly breakdown shows which platform is gaining or losing ground.
The next set of numbers is already on the calendar. In an 8 October 2026 post, Piscatella said Circana's September 2026 US video game market results were scheduled for release on 22 October 2026. That is today, so the September figures should appear shortly after this article goes up. Anyone following the console market will be looking for whether the July pattern held into the autumn, when holiday buying usually begins to build.
