The Nintendo Switch 2 helped US physical games spending see its first year-on-year increase since 2009.
That’s according to a post from market tracker Circana’s senior director, Mat Piscatella, on BlueSky, which showed that spending rose by 3% year-on-year for the 12 months ending May 2026, rising to $1.6 billion. The last time there was an increase in physical spending was 2009, when this part of the market was worth $11.5 billion.
Piscatella said that the broad decline in physical sales is due to the “overwhelming majority” of sales being digital, while second-hand “doesn’t really matter”.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Piscatella said that there was one very simple reason for this year-on-year sales increase.
“This is the Switch 2 bump,” he said. “Physical software sales on Nintendo platforms are up around 26% compared to a year ago, but still down from the year ending May 2024 period.”
Piscatella emphasised that this is highly likely to be just a “temporary blip”.
“All other ecosystems are continuing to drop by double-digit percentages,” he continued. “Very likely to be a temporary blip.”
“At some point, this will all bottom out – perhaps we’re getting there now – until the console manufacturers decide to no longer produce units with physical drives.”
In a separate post on BlueSky yesterday, Piscatella noted that 30 video games have sold over 1,000 copies of code-in-the-box physical games so far in 2026, including Just Dance 2026, Split Fiction and Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope.
This followed news that Grand Theft Auto 6 would be download-only when it launches on November 20 and that physical copies would simply be a code in a box.
Nintendo Switch 2 launched in June 2025 and globally, as of March 2026, has shifted 19.86 million consoles. In the United States, the hardware broke records, selling over 1.1 million units in its first week on sale.
In May, it was reported that Nintendo was planning a 20% increase in production on Switch 2 to keep up with demand.
