Spending on physical games increased in August thanks to key cards

Oddly, consumer spending on new physical video games in the United States is apparently on the rise. In fact 5% year over year so far in 2026, and that’s mainly thanks to gaming keycards.

Ok, it’s mainly thanks to the existence many more game key cards available than before, and the Switch 2… existing.

This comes from Circana, which reports that the 5 percent increase in new physical software is largely due to a whopping 631 percent increase in spending on game key cards, offsetting a 3 percent drop in everything else.

But this number rang very suspicious, so I asked Circana’s Mat Piscatella what was going on.

“Last year, 10 titles were released as Game-Key Cards,” he replied. “This year, 54 more Game-Key Card titles were released. So that’s the biggest reason. So we’re seeing growth in sales of new physical software for the first time in over a decade. But that’s mainly due to the Switch 2 and publishers moving more toward Game-Key Cards.”

So, yes, the Switch 2 is out, people want to buy more physical games than on other consoles, there are more games available now than last year, and a lot of them are game keycards. That explains it. (But the reason Sony is asking for it is totally because physical media is back.)

Overall content spending in August alone was down 10%, primarily due to a sharp drop in mobile spending, but spending on console content was also down. PC increased, as did subscription spending. NBA 2K27 was the best-selling game of August, followed by Madden NFL 27, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, Madden Launch Pack, And Star Wars Zero Company, in this order. Great month for new launches! NBA 2K27 is also now the third best-selling game of the year so far.

Ancient Ring went from 41st in July to 7th in August thanks to its release on Switch 2, and Piscatella tells me that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 ranked 11th, up from 31st, thanks to recent film hype. Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece also made a huge jump, from 159th to 26th, thanks to big D23 reveals and a Steam sale.

Oh, and look! Great walk in the top 10! It’s a bit crazy for an indie like that!

Total spending decreased 9% year-over-year to $4.3 billion, driven by lower spending on mobile and console content, offset by higher spending on PC content.

Accessories spending increased 3 percent and total hardware spending decreased 3 percent. Dollar sales for the PS5 were up 17 percent, but spending on the Xbox and Switch 2 fell 13 percent and offset that. In addition, this represents expenses, so price increases must be taken into account. Unit sales were pretty dismal: down 15% year over year, the lowest total for an August since 2013. PlayStation hardware was down 11% (also the lowest since 2013), Xbox was down 31% (lowest since 2020), and Nintendo was down 15%. The average price of a new unit of hardware was $541. Yeah.