Gaming, in brief

US gaming hardware spending fell 29% year-on-year in July, to $282m - the lowest July total since 2020, when consoles were unbuyable because of pandemic supply chains. [1]

Unit sales fell further than spending: down 39%. The gap is the price. [1]

The average selling price of a console rose 16%, to $542. [1]

Every platform fell: PlayStation 5 down 6%, Xbox Series down 18%, Switch 2 down 51% against its record launch year. [1]

The named cause is not gaming at all. It is the memory shortage created by the rush to build AI data centres, which the trade has taken to calling the RAM-pocalypse. [3]

Console makers have raised prices to cover component costs, and Nintendo confirmed a further Switch 2 rise from 1 September - $50 more in Canada, taking it to $679.99. [1][7]

A leaked price for the next Xbox would make it the most expensive Xbox ever. [8]

Software went the same way: physical game sales hit $85m, an all-time July low, and the weakest month since 1995. [1][2]

Sony will stop producing discs for new PlayStation games from 2028, and Xbox will not say whether its next console has a disc drive at all. [2][13]

Nintendo now accounts for 63% of US physical game spending this year; PlayStation is 32%; Xbox was not mentioned in the figures. [1][2]

And the measurement is closing: Xbox and EA have stopped sharing digital sales data with the firm that produces these numbers. [10]

PlayStation owners staged a protest by logging off, which is the only lever a customer has when the price is set somewhere else. [11]

The July comparison is exact: hardware spending in 2020 was $163m, when consoles were unbuyable because of the pandemic. This July it was $282m, and the machines are on the shelves. [4][5][6]

Almost nobody is buying new physical games on Xbox in the US at all, which is part of why its share does not appear in the split. [9]

Why it matters. Watch the average selling price rather than unit sales: units can fall for a dozen reasons, but a price that keeps climbing while demand falls is the signature of a cost the seller does not control.

1047 Games ended development on Empulse and Splitgate: Arena Reloaded, saying neither generates enough revenue to cover dedicated servers it had been subsidising. From 3 September both move to peer-to-peer hosting so players can still find matches. Riot is winding down its fighting game 2XKO in December. [15][16]

Why it matters. A game that needs a server is a game with a monthly bill, and the bill arrives whether anyone is playing or not.

Union members held another round of 'Save Our Devs' rallies across North America, a Bethesda artist said yearly layoffs are new under Microsoft, and Schell Games cut staff including named members of its marketing team. [18][19][20]

Why it matters. The rallies are about studios already closed. What the Bethesda comment adds is that the cuts have become annual rather than exceptional.

Double Fine confirmed it holds the intellectual property and publishing rights to all its games after splitting from Xbox, and the Psychonauts studio is formally making a comeback. [21][22]

Why it matters. A studio that leaves a publisher usually leaves its back catalogue behind. This one did not, which is why there is a comeback to report.

The Journey studio launched a publishing arm for other independent developers, Creative Artists Agency spun up an indie funding venture, and Makers Fund expanded its footprint. [23][24][25]

Why it matters. A talent agency funding games is a bet that the scarce thing is the maker rather than the machine.

Sweden's MTG, which bought the maker of Raid: Shadow Legends last year, laid out plans to double the company's size. [26]

Why it matters. While console hardware contracts, the part of the industry that needs no hardware at all is buying.

The EU games industry generated 24bn euros in 2024 across about 6,600 studios and more than 95,000 workers, according to a newly consolidated report. [27] A separate piece asked whether co-development - studios building each other's games - can carry the industry through this. [28]

Why it matters. The figures are two years old by the time they are compiled, which is how an industry this volatile ends up being governed on stale numbers.

Danganronpa 2x2 cancelled its Switch 2 physical pre-orders after a pivot to game-key cards - a card in a box that downloads the game rather than containing it. Commentators argue Sony is discarding something it does not understand. [12][14]

Why it matters. The object being sold as physical media increasingly is not one, which is a large part of why the physical numbers look the way they do.

Embark pushed Arc Raiders' Expeditions update to early 2027, and a former manager said a new Mass Effect looks unlikely under EA's new ownership. [17][29]

Why it matters. Both are what a squeezed industry looks like from the schedule side: fewer things, later.

Over four minutes of prologue gameplay is circulating, days after the publisher subpoenaed Microsoft and Discord trying to find the leaker. [30]

Why it matters. The legal effort and the leak are now running in parallel, and the leak is winning on speed. Amid all of it, people working in games were asked what gives them hope, and answered mostly about each other. [31]