Some of the sales estimates for May 2025 are coming out today courtesy of Circana (NPD), and it sounds like it was a bit of a mixed bag for Xbox during that month – at least in the United States which this information is based on.
Firstly, there’s a mention that video game subscription spending reached an “all-time high” in May 2025 of $0.6B, marking its third consecutive month of growth. Xbox Game Pass will obviously be a big part of this, although Circana executive director Mat Piscatella warns that “video game subscriptions” includes many different services.
Beyond this, Xbox Series X|S sales were seemingly poor in May 2025, being down 30% compared to May 2024. In contrast, Nintendo Switch sales fell by 44% and PS5 sales actually went up by 3%.
This does make sense when you consider that Microsoft announced a price hike for Xbox Series X|S consoles on May 1st though, so clearly it’s led to a big drop in purchases compared to the same time in 2024.
Elsewhere, Elden Ring: Nightreign was the best-selling game for Xbox in the US during May, followed by The Elder Scrolls Online and DOOM The Dark Ages. They’ve provided a top 10 for this, and it’s determined by physical and digital data, although it doesn’t include add-on content or publishers who are unwilling to share digital data in the first place.
With that in mind, the full top 10 is as follows:
- Elden Ring: Nightreign
- The Elder Scrolls Online
- DOOM: The Dark Ages
- Minecraft
- NBA 2K25
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- PGA Tour 2K25
- Assassin’s Creed: Shadows
- F1 25
Looking at the top 10 for all platforms, Microsoft boasted four of the five best-selling games in May, with those being DOOM: The Dark Ages, Forza Horizon 5, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
So, there you go! A bad month for console sales at Xbox, but nothing we weren’t expecting. Meanwhile, it sounds like gaming subscriptions are doing very well in terms of spending, but it’d great to get more clarity on how that extends to specific services like Xbox Game Pass – especially after all the recent drama about whether it’s sustainable or not.
And in terms of Xbox as a publisher, four out of the top five best-selling games pretty much speaks for itself.
What do you make of all this? Let us know down in the comments section below.
