According to Circana, US console unit sales in August 2026 fell 15% year over year to 559,000 units, the lowest for an August since 2013. Spending on consoles, however, fell only 3% to $302 million. The average purchase price per unit rose 13.7%, from $476 a year earlier to $541, which largely offset the decline in unit sales. Over the past year, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have each raised US list prices in succession, and their consoles now cost more than at launch. What effect have the increases had on sales? And once inflation is taken into account, how much more expensive are today's consoles than they were at launch?
Unit sales down 15%, yet spending down only 3%: why
Circana analyst Mat Piscatella published the August figures on Bluesky on October 8, 2026, covering unit sales, spending and average purchase price. Unit sales came to 559,000, the lowest for an August since 2013, when they were 423,000. Spending fell 3%, from $312 million in the same month a year earlier to $302 million. The average purchase price reached $541, topping the previous August record of $476 set in 2025.
Spending can be roughly derived by multiplying unit sales by the average purchase price. Unit sales fell to 0.85 times the prior-year level, while the average purchase price rose to about 1.137 times (541 ÷ 476). Multiplying the two gives about 0.966, a spending decline of roughly 3.4%. Indeed, 559,000 units multiplied by $541 comes to about $302.4 million, nearly identical to the reported $302 million. The 13.7% rise in average purchase price largely offset the 15% drop in unit sales, holding the decline in spending to around 3%.
The prior-year figures can be checked the same way. Since unit sales fell 15%, August 2025 unit sales work out to roughly 658,000. Multiplying that by the then-average price of $476 gives about $313 million, close to the reported $312 million. However, because the 15% decline is a rounded figure, the prior-year unit and dollar figures are approximations.
It is worth noting that the $541 figure is an average purchase price across all consoles, not the size of any individual model's price increase. From this number alone, it is impossible to tell whether the higher average reflects list price increases or a larger share of sales going to more expensive models.
The comparison month also has special circumstances. Sony raised PS5 prices in the US on August 21, so most of August 2025 was sold at pre-increase prices. That month was also the third month after the Switch 2 launched. The 15% decline in August 2026 unit sales is a comparison against a prior-year month with these different conditions.
Cumulative spending for January through August 2026 fell 11% year over year to $2.5 billion, a steeper decline than the 3% drop in August alone. At least for August, the higher average purchase price made up for lower unit sales, but the same pattern did not hold across the year.
Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo raise prices in succession, and unit sales fall below last year
From Sony's PS5 price increase on August 21, 2025, to Nintendo's Switch 2 price increase on September 1, 2026, the three major companies adjusted prices over roughly a year. In that period, Sony and Microsoft each raised prices twice.
Circana's sales data show that PS5 unit sales in May 2026, and overall console unit sales in July and August, fell below the same months a year earlier.
| Date | Event | Key figures / details |
|---|---|---|
| August 21, 2025 | Sony raises PS5 prices in the US | PS5: $549.99; Digital Edition: $499.99; PS5 Pro: $749.99 |
| October 2025 | Microsoft raises Xbox console prices in the US | Increases of $20 to $70, depending on model |
| April 2, 2026 (announced March 27) | Sony raises PS5 prices again | PS5: $649.99; Digital Edition: $599.99; PS5 Pro: $899.99 |
| Week ending April 4, 2026 | Circana weekly data | PS5 unit and dollar sales hit the highest weekly levels of 2026 to that point |
| May 8, 2026 | Nintendo announces a US Switch 2 price increase | From $449.99 to $499.99, effective September 1 |
| May 2026 | Circana monthly data | PS5 units down 58%, dollars down 43%. PS5 average purchase price $672 (up 33%); industry-wide $502 (vs. $440 a year earlier) |
| June 25, 2026 (effective August 1) | Microsoft announces a global price revision | 512GB model up $100, 1TB model up $150. The 2TB model discontinued |
| July 2026 | Circana monthly data | Market-wide unit sales down 39%, average purchase price $542 (up 16%), spending down 29% to $282 million |
| August 2026 | Circana monthly data | Market-wide unit sales down 15% to 559,000, average purchase price $541 |
| September 1, 2026 | Nintendo raises Switch 2 price in the US | From $449.99 to $499.99 |
In chronological order, as the three companies kept raising prices, PS5 unit sales in May 2026 fell 58% year over year, the overall console market fell 39% in July and the overall market fell 15% in August. Note, however, that May refers to the PS5 alone while July and August refer to the whole market, so the comparison bases differ. Also, the fact that price increases and sales declines occurred at the same time does not mean the increases caused the declines.
Year-over-year changes are also affected by market conditions in the comparison month. The Switch 2 launched in June 2025, and the PS5 price increase took effect on August 21 of that year. These events need to be taken into account when reading the following year's comparisons.
Indeed, the narrowing of the decline from 39% in July to 15% in August does not necessarily mean the market has recovered. Switch 2 unit sales in July fell 51% year over year, but the comparison month, July 2025, was its second month on sale, when demand tends to be concentrated. Meanwhile, PS5 fell 6% and Xbox Series fell 18% that month, showing large differences in the size of declines by platform. When the prior-year sales situation differs, the year-over-year figures change significantly.
The sales record for the week ending April 4 also calls for caution. In the week when Sony moved to the new prices on April 2, after announcing the increase on March 27, PS5 unit and dollar sales both hit the highest weekly levels of 2026 to that point. But whether this was rush buying ahead of the increase, and how it affected summer demand, cannot be determined from Circana's public data.
The reasons the companies gave for the increases also vary. Sony cited a "difficult economic environment" in August 2025 and "ongoing pressure on the global economy" in March 2026. Nintendo explained its increase as due to "changing market conditions."
Microsoft, for its part, said the price of storage and memory used in consoles has soared by more than 2.5 times and is expected to double again by fall 2027. It also said consoles are generally sold below manufacturing cost. On that premise, rising component prices would widen the per-unit loss if selling prices were held constant.
PS5 sales units fall but dollar sales rise: where does Xbox differ?
Circana's August 2026 data on the US retail market shows an interesting gap between unit and dollar sales by platform.
In unit sales, PlayStation fell 11% year over year, the lowest for an August since 2013. Xbox fell 31%, the lowest since 2020, and Nintendo fell 15%.
In dollar sales, however, PS5 rose 17%, while both Xbox Series and Switch 2 fell 13%. Switch 2 ranked first in both unit and dollar sales, with PS5 second.
The 17% increase in PS5 dollar sales refers to US retail sales of PS5 hardware as tallied by Circana, not to Sony's reported revenue.
Indeed, Sony reported that worldwide PS5 shipments for April through June 2026 were 1.6 million units, down from 2.5 million in the same period a year earlier. However, these are shipments from the manufacturer to retailers and others (sell-in), which differ in region and methodology from Circana's US retail sales data, so they cannot be compared directly.
The change rates in dollar sales and unit sales allow a rough estimate of how much the average purchase price per unit rose.
The formula is:
Change in average purchase price = (1 + change in dollar sales) ÷ (1 + change in unit sales) − 1
Applying this, PlayStation rose about 31% (1.17 ÷ 0.89) and Xbox about 26% (0.87 ÷ 0.69).
However, because the published change rates are rounded to whole percentages, the back-calculated values contain some error. Also, for PlayStation, unit sales cover all PlayStation hardware while dollar sales cover PS5 hardware, so the scope is not perfectly aligned. The figure of about 31% should therefore be treated as a reference value, not a precise rise in average price.
So how much did actual list prices rise?
Between after the August 21, 2025 increase and after the April 2, 2026 increase, the standard PS5 went from $549.99 to $649.99, the Digital Edition from $499.99 to $599.99 and the PS5 Pro from $749.99 to $899.99. That is an increase of 18.2% to 20.0%.
For Xbox, combining the increases published by Microsoft for August 1, 2026 with model-by-model prices confirmed in secondary reports, the Series S (512GB) rose 31.6% from $379.99 to $499.99 and the Series X rose 33.3% from $599.99 to $799.99 between August 2025 and August 2026.
By comparison, the average purchase price increases back-calculated from Circana's August unit and dollar sales are about 31% for PlayStation and about 26% for Xbox.
The Xbox average purchase price increase is below the roughly 32–33% rise in list prices over the same period. PlayStation's back-calculated 31%, on the other hand, exceeds the 18–20% from the latest list price increase. However, because most of August 2025 was sold at pre-increase PS5 prices, the two cannot simply be compared.
For PS5, the prior-year August average purchase price largely reflects pre-increase levels. The roughly 31% rise therefore includes the increase from list prices before August 2025 to current list prices. However, the primary sources consulted do not confirm the list price before the August 21, 2025 revision, so that effect cannot be isolated numerically.
Furthermore, average purchase price is affected not only by list price changes but also by the mix of models sold.
For example, the PS5 average purchase price in the week ending August 22 was $680, above the $649.99 list price of the standard model. The share of the $899.99 PS5 Pro may have risen, but model-level unit sales are not published, so this cannot be confirmed.
The lower growth in Xbox's average purchase price than in list prices may reflect a larger share of sales going to the relatively cheaper Series S. This, too, is only conjecture. In the same week, the average purchase price was $622 for Xbox Series and $451 for Switch 2.
For Nintendo, the unit sales cover all Nintendo consoles including the original Switch while the dollar sales cover Switch 2 alone, so the average purchase price cannot be back-calculated in the same way.
Looking at cumulative January–August unit sales, Xbox fell 33% year over year, the lowest for that period on record. PlayStation fell 25%, the lowest since 2013.
Still, average purchase prices for the period were records in the US: $529 for Xbox (up 26% year over year) and $597 for PlayStation (up 20%). These are platform averages based on the January–August cumulative total and differ in period and scope from the $541 market-wide average for August alone.
On October 9, 2026, Piscatella said of the situation, "Price sensitivity is becoming a real problem."
Adjusted for inflation, the PS5 disc edition costs about the same as at launch; the Xbox Series S about 30% more
To gauge how much more expensive consoles are than at launch, it is necessary to consider not just the nominal increase but also inflation over the period.
Here we use the US all-items Consumer Price Index (CPI-U, not seasonally adjusted) to compare launch prices with list prices as of August 2026.
The US CPI-U rose from 260.229 in November 2020 to 334.980 in August 2026. Over about five years and nine months, the price level rose 28.7%.
The real price increase is found by dividing the August 2026 list price by the rise in the price level (334.980 ÷ 260.229) and comparing the result with the launch price.
For example, the PS5 disc edition, which launched in November 2020 at $499.99, would cost about $644 in August 2026 price levels. The difference from the current list price of $649.99 is only 1.0%.
| Model | US list price at launch | US list price, August 2026 | Nominal increase | Inflation-adjusted increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS5 disc edition | $499.99 | $649.99 | +30.0% | +1.0% |
| PS5 Digital Edition | $399.99 | $599.99 | +50.0% | +16.5% |
| Xbox Series X | $499 | $799.99 | +60.3% | +24.5% |
| Xbox Series S (512GB) | $299 | $499.99 | +67.2% | +29.9% |
On nominal prices alone, all four models cost 30.0% to 67.2% more than at launch. But subtracting inflation using the US Consumer Price Index reveals large differences by model.
The PS5 disc edition's real price increase is just 1.0%, essentially the same level as at launch. By contrast, the PS5 Digital Edition is up 16.5%, the Xbox Series X 24.5% and the Xbox Series S (512GB) 29.9%. In other words, even after accounting for inflation, the two Xbox models cost roughly 20–30% more than at launch.
There are several caveats to this comparison.
First, the CPI-U is an index of overall US consumer prices and does not show price trends specific to consoles. Also, the PS5 later moved to a slimmer model and its storage capacity changed. This is therefore not a comparison of identical specifications but of list prices within the same product line.
For Xbox, estimated launch retail prices of $499 and $299 were used. The August 2026 prices were calculated from the increases officially announced by Microsoft and from model-by-model prices confirmed in secondary reports. Current prices by model could not be confirmed directly on official pages.
Because the Switch 2 is new, having launched in June 2025, it was calculated separately from the four models launched in 2020. Its US list price rose from $449.99 at launch to $499.99 on September 1, 2026, a nominal increase of 11.1% in about 15 months. Using the June 2025 CPI-U (322.561) and the August 2026 CPI-U to remove inflation, the real increase is about 7.0%.
Average console purchase prices have also risen market-wide. The annual average went from $247 in 2019 to a record $452 in 2025, a nominal increase of 83%. Adjusted using each year's average CPI-U, the real increase is 45%.
However, the market-wide average purchase price also reflects changes in the mix of models consumers buy. Its nature therefore differs from the figures for the four models, which compare list prices within the same product line.
Console prices also rose in Japan in 2026. Sony raised the PS5 to ¥97,980 and the PS5 Pro to ¥137,980 from April 2. Nintendo raised the Japanese-language, Japan-only Switch 2 model from ¥49,980 to ¥59,980 from May 25. Because Japanese prices include tax and US list prices exclude it, we avoided comparing prices between the two countries directly.
September sales data on October 22 will be the first look at the impact of the Switch 2 increase
In the US console market in August 2026, a higher average purchase price largely offset the effect of lower unit sales. However, cumulative January–August spending is down 11% year over year, so it cannot be said that higher average prices from the increases have continued to support dollar sales across the market.
The key question going forward is how unit sales respond to further price increases.
First up is the September sales data that Piscatella is scheduled to publish on October 22.
The Switch 2, which led in both unit and dollar sales in August, saw its US list price raised from $449.99 to $499.99 on September 1. September is the first full month in which post-increase sales trends can be checked.
If Switch 2 dollar sales fall sharply, the higher average price alone may not have been enough to offset lower unit sales. Conversely, if dollar sales hold, higher unit prices would have supported sales even after the increase. However, changes in unit sales are also affected by prior-year post-launch demand and market conditions, so the effect of the price increase alone cannot be isolated.
Piscatella has mentioned that major releases planned for November could ease the market's decline, while also noting that shortages and soaring prices of memory and components have left the US console market in a state of instability not seen since the early 1980s.
Microsoft likewise cited soaring memory and storage prices as the background to its console price increases, and expects those prices to double again by fall 2027.
The circumstances behind each company's increases are not necessarily the same. Still, if component costs keep rising, they will remain a factor that cannot be ignored in future pricing. For console makers, balancing better per-unit margins from price increases against keeping prices affordable to protect unit sales looks set to become increasingly difficult.