Josh has been playing video games for longer than he can remember, kicking things off with a Master System before upgrading to a Mega Drive. Covering the industry since 2018, if a game has a strong story – or even better, the decisions you make determine the course of that story – odds are he’s going to like it. Or, you know, put Sonic or Pikachu on the cover and that’ll get his attention too.
We’ve been waiting to see if the incremental increases to console prices would affect their sales, and we finally have the damning evidence most of us were expecting. 1.6 million consoles were sold in the US in November, which might sound like a lot, but it’s the lowest November total the industry has collectively achieved since 1995.
That’s according to the latest Circana data shared by Mat Piscatella. The PS5 was the best-selling console in the US last month, marking the first time it has managed to outsell the Nintendo Switch 2 since its handheld hybrid competitor launched back in June. It’s a hollow victory, though, as the bigger picture demonstrates a worrying trend.
Not Many People Are Getting New Consoles This Christmas
November is usually one of the biggest months of the year for console sales for a number of reasons. Chief among them is it’s the month in which most people do their Christmas shopping. It’s also the month in which Black Friday falls. The PS5’s sales will have been driven by the $100 it knocked off the price of all its console models for the biggest sale of the year – a discount that will remain in place until Christmas Eve, by the way.
The chart Piscatella shared shows that November console sales have been on a steady decline since 2018. It also includes an orange line that represents how much the average new console has cost each November from 1995 until now. Hitting an all-time high of almost $450 last month, it’s perhaps unsurprising that people aren’t buying consoles ahead of the holidays as much as they used to.
A reminder that there isn’t even an expensive new console on the market this year, dragging that average up. The Switch 2 is the newest console available, and its MSRP is exactly where the average price falls. It’s the Xbox Series X|S and PS5, which are both more expensive today than they were when they were released five years ago, dragging that average up, and the little-known NEX Playground keeping that average under $500.
What Consoles Did Gamers Have To Choose From In November 1995?
To really hammer home just how bad the situation is, let’s take a look at which consoles were on the market in November 1995, the last November in which fewer consoles were sold than in November 2025. Topping the bill is the PS1, an iconic console, but unproven at the time and only two months old in the US. Its main competitor was the Sega Saturn, which was released in the US a few months earlier, and you probably don’t need me to tell you people weren’t exactly rushing out to buy Sega’s penultimate home console.
I’m going to tell you anyway – 9.26 million. That’s less than the Wii U, and it has already been outsold by the Switch 2.
The Sega Genesis and the SNES were both still available, of course, but both had been on the market for years by that point and wouldn’t have been selling many units at all. All of that to say, that’s the last time the industry came close to hitting a November total this low, and that’s in a year where we have a brand new Nintendo console that’s one of the fastest-selling consoles ever.
We want to hear from you! Share your opinions in the thread below and remember to keep it respectful.
Please respect our community guidelines. No links, inappropriate language, or spam.
