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Memory-driven price hikes push US console unit sales down 39% in July with average price at $542
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US console hardware unit sales fell 39% year-over-year in July while the average selling price rose 16% to $542, with Circana analyst Mat Piscatella explicitly tying the decline to console price increases caused by the RAM and component crisis.
The memory and component cost crisis is now visibly depressing consumer hardware volumes, with all three major platform holders raising prices or cutting production. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma projects the company will pay five times more for memory and storage in 2027 than it did two years earlier, suggesting this cost pressure is expected to worsen rather than abate. Only one feed carried this story, so the figures lack independent corroboration.
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PS5 unit sales fell 6% while dollar sales rose 29% after Sony raised prices by $100 across the range in April, taking the standard console to $599 and the PS5 Pro to $899.
Nintendo cut planned Switch 2 output by 2 million units in March after RAM costs rose 41%, and a $50 price increase to $499 takes effect September 1.
Physical game disc spending fell to $85 million in July, the lowest figure since Circana began tracking in 1995, while Microsoft and EA have both stopped sharing digital sales data with the firm.
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