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. Update 12:20pm PT: Piscatella tells IGN that the Switch currently trails the Nintendo DS by over 7 million units in the U.S., so it’s probably not catching up anytime soon.Original story continues below: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.Update 12:20pm PT: I asked Piscatella what he made of the PS5’s relatively smaller unit sales compared to larger dollar sales, and if they were in line with his expectations. He responded as follows:The PS5 Pro was always targeted at the hyper enthusiast niche, which is an audience that generally doesn’t mind paying a high price for even nominal improvements. Given the far higher price of PS5 Pro it saw a solid unit launch sales result. The question is how the legs will be, and if the PS5 Pro is going to keep pace with the sales curve of PS4 Pro or if it will fall off now that were past the day 1 buyer. I’m anticipating it will fall off the pace a bit more, but at that price it can and still show a dollar sales increase.Original story continues below: 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 6Madden NFL 25EA Sports FC 25EA Sports College Football 25Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZeroSuper Mario Party Jamboree*Mario & Luigi: Brothership*Sonic X Shadow GenerationsNBA 2K25*Dragon Age: The VeilguardHogwarts LegacyDragon Quest 3Astro BotMarvel’s Spider-Man 2Silent Hill 2 (2024)UndisputedMetaphor: ReFantazioMinecraft*My Sims: Cozy BundleMarvel 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.
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