EA Sports College Football 25 has become the best-selling sports game ever launched in the U.S., according to industry-tracking firm Circana. The revival of EA’s college football franchise has been doing good business since it launched in September, and even recently won the Game Award for Best Sports/Racing Game for this year. Its success is a standout in a relatively quiet month in U.S.-based video game sales.
“Projected November 2024 U.S. consumer spending on video game hardware, content and accessories fell 7% when compared to a year ago, to $5.8 billion,” said Mat Piscatella, Circana’s executive producer for games reports. “The decline was driven in part by the debut of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 in October this year, while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023) launched during the November tracking month a year ago.”
Hardware sales for the year have been on a downward trend for months — this is the first time since July that the sales change hasn’t been a negative. However, this is likely due to the dip in software sales in November 2023 (which were down 24% year-over-year) rather than exceptional sales in November 2024. Piscatella also notes that hardware sales for PlayStation 5 grew, while sales of Xbox Series consoles and Nintendo Switch were down.
Piscatella notes that the PlayStation 5’s boost in sales comes in part from the launch of the PlayStation 5 Pro. “PlayStation 5 Pro accounted for 19% of total PlayStation 5 units sold in the month and 28% of dollars. Launch month dollar sales of PlayStation 5 Pro were more than 50% higher than the November 2016 launch month sales of PlayStation 4 Pro, while units were 12% lower.”
Circana November 2024: Top 20 best-selling games in the U.S.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 remains top of the list in November over several of EA’s sports titles, which are boosted, likely thanks to Black Friday sales. Only a few of November’s games make the list, including Mario & Luigi: Brothership, Dragon Quest III and My Sims: Cozy Bundle. While it didn’t make the sales charts, GSC Game World’s Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl showed high levels of player engagement on Xbox and Steam.
The other interesting shift on the list is Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics getting a boost all the way from 87th place to 20th. It’s not entirely clear what caused the game’s jump so far up the list — though the launch of the physical version on November 22 is a likely factor.
Circana November 2024: 20 best-selling games of 2024 so far
EA Sports College Football 25 continues to keep its place at the top of the year’s best-selling list, thought Black Ops 6 has now edged up enough (with the addition of a month of sales) to displace Helldivers 2 from its second-place throne. Another EA title, EA Sports FC 25 has also risen up the charts since its launch. The only other interesting change on the list is Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s jump from 24th place to 20th — likely due to the game being one of the titles to receive a graphical boost on the PlayStation 5 Pro.
