November game spending slides 7% | US Monthly Charts

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Circana today released its monthly US game spending report, with the industry's total November haul taking a hit thanks to year-over-year declines in hardware and console software spending.

For the November reporting period, total game spending in the US was down 7% to $5.87 billion.

Spending on game content (full game, add-on, and microtransaction sales as well as subscriptions across console, mobile, PC, VR, and cloud platforms) was down 3% to $4.6 billion, but Circana singled out console and handheld software spending as the weak point, citing a tough comparison against last November's launches of God of War: Ragnarok and Pokémon: Scarlet and Violet.

That drop comes despite one factor working in November's favor, the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Last year's Modern Warfare 2 launched earlier, so its flurry of launch sales and preorders boosted the October monthly total instead.

Modern Warfare 3 debuted at the top of the November sales charts, leading a field of four new releases in the top 20.

Nintendo's Super Mario RPG remake landed in seventh spot based solely on the strength of its boxed copy sales, while Naruto x Baruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections made it to 12th on the charts, and Star Ocean: The Second Story R finished in 17th place.

Gaming hardware took a steep dip in November, down 24% to $964 million.

All the major consoles saw a double-digit percentage decline in sales, with the Switch falling the furthest.

The PS5 was once again the best-selling platform in dollar and unit sales, followed by Xbox Series X|S in both measures.

Circana classifies PlayStation Portal as a hardware platform rather than an