Though derided by some gamers for being samey and formulaic, sports games still have a massive appeal that can dominate the charts. Such was the case for the August 2025 top selling games, where EA and Take-Two franchises placed in five out of the top ten spots for the month, outcompeting new releases in action and adventure games. The info comes from Mat Piscatella of Circana, who provided other information about industry trends and sales for the month in a Bluesky thread.
August 2025 Top 20 Best-Selling Premium Games – U.S. (Dollar Sales, Physical and Digital from digital data sharing publishers, excludes add-on content)
— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) October 8, 2025 at 6:02 AM
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NBA Brings Home Gold in August Sales
At the very top, NBA 2K26, ranked number one, followed by Madden NFL 26. For the rest of the sports titles, EA Sports College Football 26 ranked fifth, and two EA Sports Bundles ranked at eighth and ninth. From there, non-sports games occupied the rest of the top ten. New releases that month included Mafia: The Old Country, Gears of War: Reloaded, and Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. Donkey Kong Bananza kept the momentum going from its July release, and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: The Hinokami Chronicles 2 (boy that’s a mouthful) rounded out the top ten.
From there, more established games like Hogwarts Legacy, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Helldivers II continue to show strong performance, owing to regular discounts and sales. The only other new release in the top twenty for August was Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, the only life sim in a sea of sports and action games. Overall, August spending showed stronger sales year over year, with 2025 up more than 10% compared to 2024. Piscatella attributes this to NBA 2K26, an increase in mobile spending, and strong sales for the Nintendo Switch 2.
Other Trends: Nintendo Keeping Hardware Sales Afloat
The Switch 2’s launch is attributed to strong console sales for the industry this year. Overall, hardware revenues are up 32% YoY, with the Switch making up for steep declines in Xbox and PS5 sales. The console has had the fastest sales of all time, ahead of the PS4 which sold 2.2 million during its launch period. By comparison, the Switch 2 has sold 2.4 million units at launch, ahead of the Switch 1 by 77%. While some companies are struggling with the future of their consoles, Nintendo may not be one of them.
Another highlight: spending on non-mobile game services went up 19% higher at $3.6 billion. The figure comes before September’s news of Game Pass price increases, a move which sparked the ire of some gamers. We’ll have to wait until October to see what the full impact on subscription services will be. Until then, it seems August is a good month to be a sports game fan. Though if you’re reading Icy Veins, that’s probably not you.
For more coverage, check out our other games section.
