Circana Says Hardware Market in the US is in Most 'Precarious Position Since the Early 80s' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 4 days ago / 2,273 Views
Senior Director and Video Game Industry Advisor at Circana Mat Piscatella on social media says the price of consoles in the US has never been higher and the hardware market hasn't been this "precarious" since the early 1980s.
"For 2026 YTD ending August, Xbox hardware unit sales are down 33% versus a year ago in the US, while PlayStation hardware units are 25% lower," said Piscatella. "Xbox YTD US hardware unit sales are at an all-time low, while PlayStation is at lowest point since 2013.
"The average price a consumer has paid for a new Xbox console in 2026 YTD ending August is $529, 26% higher than a year ago, while the average PlayStation console has sold for $597, 20% higher than last year. Both prices are at all-time US highs. Price sensitivity is becoming a real problem.
"Perhaps the release of the Big Video Game (Grand Theft Auto VI) in November will help ease at least some of these declines. But this will also depend on product availability given the RAM and component crisis. And pricing, of course. The US hardware market has not been in a more precarious position since the early 80s."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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The ENTIRE US is in a "precarious position" at the moment
Yeah, but the US is in a precarious position bc of a very specific and orange reason
ah... btw, there is a serious deflation here in China the mainland.
There are a lot of problems in the world, but I would put AI disruptions pretty far down the list. In fact if it wasn’t for AI we might have already seen a stock market crash.
If we're back in the 1980s, expect a lot of video game companies go go bankrupt. Feels like if the ram crisis doesnt end soon, gaming might shift from mainstream back to niche like it used to be decades ago
unfortunately, this industry is going to continue to go backwards
hmmm, if looking at the gaming industry as a whole, maybe yes; but if only looking at Nintendo, they may still live well due to their conservative operating style? (I don't know, just my thinking).
thats right, 100% what i believe. i do hope im wrong though
Well we are seeing more jobs being lost per year, than what the entire industry was hiring during that period, so yeah, the industry is not healthy.
if true there is a positive, its outside activates,
There will be a huge hardware crisis in less than 2 years when the PS6 and Helix are released. The only console that can survive the storm is the Switch 2 and only if Nintendo menages to hold the line when it comes to prices.
Terafab will be starting production in about a year, which will start to take some of the pressure off other chip makers. In 2 years, it should be ramping up production significantly. At that point RAM should start dropping. We shall see.
Probably add another six months to that based on what their road map is. I suspect there will be hurdles too with a few months of what feels like cycling in place to get defects down to an acceptable percentage as they ramp up. I hope it goes well though.
Really interested in the challenges of building pristine manufacture on an old coal power site with a history of coal dust. Success there could be hugely important.
YMTC out of China seems to be progressing well with increasing production of lower end DDR5 and other memory technologies. It’s mostly for the Chinese market, but also ships globally.
Should relieve pressure a little bit before Terafab makes an impact. Next year still going to be tough unfortunately.
interesting, hope so
its not just consoles. Building a PC that will be able to hang with the new consoles is becoming a pipe dream for many.
Does "hang with the new consoles" mean run emulators? Just curious.
All thanks to rich pedophiles with data centers.
