Xbox and PS5 Sales Hit New Lows as Analyst Compares US Market to Early 80s Crash

Console price hikes are hammering US hardware sales. Circana analyst Mat Piscatella says Xbox unit sales are down 33% year over year, a new all-time low for the platform, while PlayStation is down 25%, its weakest showing since 2013. He warns the US hardware market has not been in a more precarious position since the early 1980s, when the industry collapsed.

Record prices, record lows

Piscatella laid out the numbers in a post on Bluesky. Xbox hardware sales are down 33% "versus a year ago in the US, while PlayStation hardware units are 25% lower." Both figures are year-to-date.

The price data explains much of the drop. "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," Piscatella wrote. "Both prices are at all-time US highs. Price sensitivity is becoming a real problem."

Can GTA 6 help?

Rockstar's GTA 6 launches next month, and Piscatella noted it could "help ease at least some of these declines." That depends on pricing and "product availability," though. If memory components are tied up by AI data centres, Microsoft and Sony may not be able to build as many consoles as buyers want.

His broader assessment was blunt: "The US hardware market has not been in a more precarious position since the early 80s."

The memory squeeze

Memory demand from AI data centres is the main driver behind the price increases. The PS5, Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S have all had their prices raised, in some cases more than once, and most consumer electronics have followed the same trend over the past few years.

Relief does not look close. Micron's CEO recently warned that memory shortages will persist until at least 2028. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma struck a similar note months earlier:

"When I joined as CEO in February, the price we paid for console storage components was over 2x as high as we paid last fall. These costs have since doubled again. And as we plan for the 2027 holiday season, we expect another significant increase, taking us over 5x the prices we paid only two years earlier."

Hardware makers are paying far more for components while shoppers are already balking at the sticker price. That leaves the platform holders with little room to cut prices and a launch as large as GTA 6 as their best hope of getting people to buy consoles.