Best-selling video games in top markets statistics & facts

What the world plays and buys

Video games are the largest entertainment industry in the world. According to Newzoo, global games revenue passed 200 billion US dollars for the first time in 2025, reaching 201.6 billion, more than the global box office and recorded music combined. Behind that total sit a small number of blockbuster titles that sell tens or even hundreds of millions of copies, and a set of national markets with very different tastes. A football game tops the charts across Europe, American shooters and sports games lead in the United States, and Nintendo games dominate Japan.

This report looks at the best-selling video games from two angles. First, the all-time best-sellers, led by Minecraft at 350 million copies and Grand Theft Auto V at more than 230 million. Second, the best-selling games of 2025 in the biggest markets: the United States, Japan and Europe, together with the size of those markets and the consoles that drive them. It also looks ahead to 2026, the year of the Nintendo Switch 2 and the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto VI.

The best-selling video games of all time

Minecraft is the best-selling single video game in history. Mojang reported in late 2025 that it had sold more than 350 million copies across every platform since its release in 2011, a figure that keeps growing thanks to new players on phones, consoles and PCs and to the success of A Minecraft Movie in 2025. Grand Theft Auto V is second, with more than 230 million units sold since 2013, according to Take-Two Interactive in August 2026.

Minecraft in a class of its own: Minecraft has sold about 350 million copies, half as many again as Grand Theft Auto V and four times as many as any other game.

The rest of the all-time list shows the variety of games that can become mass-market hits. Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold more than 87 million copies, Wii Sports 82.9 million, mostly bundled with the Wii console, and PUBG: Battlegrounds 75 million. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, at 71.53 million copies on the Switch alone, is the best-selling racing game ever. Independent games feature strongly: Terraria has sold about 70 million copies and Human: Fall Flat about 55 million, while The Witcher 3 from Poland has reached about 65 million. Many of the best-sellers are not new: they are games that have been re-released on new platforms, updated for years, or kept alive by online communities.

Unit sales are not the only measure of success. Free-to-play games such as Fortnite, Roblox, League of Legends and mobile titles like Honor of Kings earn billions of dollars a year from in-game purchases without selling copies at all, so they do not appear in best-seller lists. Grand Theft Auto V is unusual in succeeding both ways: its online mode, GTA Online, continues to earn money more than a decade after launch. Video games have also become a source of hit films and series, as our data on the most watched video game movie adaptations on Netflix shows.

A 201.6 billion dollar market

The global games market reached 201.6 billion dollars in 2025, up 9.1 percent, according to Newzoo, whose final estimate was published in June 2026. Mobile games were the largest segment with 113.3 billion dollars, or 56 percent of the total, followed by console games at 44.7 billion and PC games at 43.6 billion. PC recorded its strongest annual growth so far, at 12 percent.

Mobile is more than half: mobile games earned 113.3 billion dollars in 2025, more than console and PC combined.

Mobile games dominate revenue but rarely appear in lists of best-selling titles, because most are free to download and earn money from in-game purchases. The console and PC segments are where traditional best-sellers are made, and they are the focus of most national sales charts. Newzoo estimates there were about 3.58 billion players worldwide in 2025, of whom 3 billion played on mobile, 936 million on PC and 645 million on consoles. For the mobile side, see our data on the leading Android apps and the most popular App Store categories.

The biggest games markets

Two countries account for about half of global games spending. In its mid-2025 forecast Newzoo put China at 49.8 billion dollars and the United States at 49.6 billion, together 52.6 percent of the world total; its final figures for 2025 put China at 54.6 billion. By region, Asia-Pacific is by far the largest market, driven by China, Japan and South Korea, followed by North America and Europe.

Asia-Pacific leads: Asia-Pacific was forecast to generate 87.6 billion dollars in 2025, more than North America and Europe combined.

Each market has its own character. China is dominated by mobile and PC games, much of it from domestic publishers such as Tencent and NetEase. The United States is the largest console market and the biggest buyer of premium games. Japan is the heartland of Nintendo and handheld play. Europe is a patchwork of national markets united by a love of football games. The Middle East and Africa were the fastest-growing regions in 2025, up 6.8 percent. Many of the companies behind these markets are among the largest internet companies in the world, and competitive gaming has its own geography, as shown in our data on the leading esports countries.

Best-selling games in the United States in 2025

The United States is the largest market for premium console and PC games. According to Circana, Americans spent 60.7 billion dollars on video games in 2025, up 1.4 percent, including 52.3 billion on game content, 5.4 billion on console hardware and 3.0 billion on accessories. Subscription spending rose sharply, up 24 percent, as services such as Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus grew.

Content is king: 52.3 billion of the 60.7 billion dollars Americans spent on video games in 2025 went on games and in-game content.

Battlefield 6, released by Electronic Arts in October 2025, was the best-selling game of the year in the United States in dollar terms, ending the long run of Call of Duty, whose Black Ops 7 finished fifth, its lowest annual ranking since 2008. Sports games took four of the top ten places, reflecting the strength of annual franchises in American football, basketball, college football and soccer. The top 20 best-selling games of 2025 in the United States, ranked by dollar sales across physical and digital formats, were:

1. Battlefield 6
2. NBA 2K26
3. Borderlands 4
4. Monster Hunter Wilds
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
6. Madden NFL 26
7. EA Sports College Football 26
8. EA Sports FC 26
9. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
10. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
11. Ghost of Yotei
12. MLB The Show 25
13. Minecraft
14. Elden Ring Nightreign
15. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
16. Forza Horizon 5
17. Pokemon Legends: Z-A
18. WWE 2K25
19. Split Fiction
20. Grand Theft Auto V

Circana notes that Nintendo does not share digital sales data for its own games, so titles such as Mario Kart World are under-represented in the overall ranking; on the Switch platform chart, Nintendo games took nine of the top ten places. The Nintendo Switch 2 was the best-selling console of 2025 in the United States, with 4.4 million units sold, running 35 percent ahead of the PlayStation 4 over the same period after launch. Grand Theft Auto V, more than 12 years after its release, still made the top 20.

The US charts in 2026

The first half of 2026 was led by new releases. Through early July 2026, the best-selling games of the year in the United States were Resident Evil Requiem, Crimson Desert and 007 First Light, followed by MLB The Show 26, Forza Horizon 6, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, Pokemon Pokopia, WWE 2K26 and NBA 2K26, according to Circana. Overall US spending was running 2 percent behind 2025 through July, and hardware spending in July fell 29 percent to its lowest July level since 2020, as the average price of a new console rose 16 percent to 542 dollars.

The rest of the year will be dominated by one release. Grand Theft Auto VI is scheduled to launch on 19 November 2026 after two delays, and Take-Two chief executive Strauss Zelnick has repeatedly reaffirmed the date. Take-Two expects net bookings of 8.0 to 8.2 billion dollars in its fiscal year ending March 2027, reflecting its confidence in the game. With the Grand Theft Auto franchise already at nearly 475 million units sold, GTA VI is widely expected to become the best-selling game of 2026 in the US within weeks of launch.

Best-selling games in Japan in 2025

Japan is the most Nintendo-focused major market in the world. According to Famitsu, the Japanese games market grew strongly in 2025 to 418.13 billion yen, with hardware sales of 282.69 billion yen and software sales of 135.44 billion yen, powered by the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 in June 2025. The Switch 2 sold about 3.8 million units in Japan in its first seven months.

Mario Kart World leads: the Switch 2 launch title sold about 2.67 million physical copies in Japan in 2025, and Nintendo platforms took nine of the top ten places.

Mario Kart World, the launch title for the Switch 2, was the best-selling game in Japan in 2025 with 2,668,381 physical copies. Pokemon Legends: Z-A sold more than 2.5 million copies across its Switch and Switch 2 versions combined. Monster Hunter Wilds on the PlayStation 5, with 838,319 copies, was the only non-Nintendo platform game in the top ten, reflecting the strength of Capcom in its home market. Older Switch games such as Minecraft and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe also remained in the top ten years after release, a pattern typical of the Japanese market.

Best-selling games in Europe in 2025

In Europe, football rules. EA Sports FC 26 was the best-selling game of 2025 across 17 European countries tracked by GfK Entertainment, and it was the number one game in 16 of them, including the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Spain. Pokemon Legends: Z-A was second across Europe and Minecraft third, boosted by the release of A Minecraft Movie. The only country where a different game came first was the Czech Republic, where the domestic hit Kingdom Come: Deliverance II took the top spot.

National tastes still show through in the details. In Germany, the PC chart was led not by FC 26 but by two German-made games, Farming Simulator 25 and Anno 117: Pax Romana. In the United Kingdom, Mario Kart World and Battlefield 6 were among the strongest sellers behind FC 26, and FC 26 continued to top weekly UK retail charts well into 2026. The EA Sports FC series, formerly FIFA, has been the best-selling game in most European markets almost every year for more than a decade.

Nintendo: the biggest hit machine

Nintendo publishes more of the best-selling console games than any other company. According to its investor data as of 30 June 2026, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has sold 71.53 million copies on the original Switch, Animal Crossing: New Horizons 50.29 million and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate 38.14 million. On the Switch 2, Mario Kart World had already sold 15.39 million copies, Donkey Kong Bananza 4.77 million and the Switch 2 Edition of Pokemon Legends: Z-A 3.99 million.

Mario Kart does it again: Mario Kart World sold 15.39 million copies in about a year on Switch 2, while Mario Kart 8 Deluxe reached 71.53 million on the original Switch.

The Switch has sold 156.59 million consoles and 1.56 billion games since 2017, and the Switch 2 had reached 23.68 million consoles and 58.17 million games by the end of June 2026. After 14 months on the market, Circana said the Switch 2 was running 11 percent ahead of the original Switch in the United States. Because most Switch 2 owners bought Mario Kart World, often in a bundle, the game is on course to become one of the best-selling titles of the decade.

The consoles behind the best-sellers

Best-selling games depend on best-selling hardware. The Nintendo Switch, at 156.59 million units, is now the best-selling Nintendo console ever and ranks among the best-selling consoles of all time, alongside the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation 2, which Sony says sold more than 160 million units. The PlayStation 5 had shipped 95.3 million units by June 2026, about 4.9 million behind the PlayStation 4 at the same point, and the PlayStation Network had 125 million monthly active users.

Switch nears the record: the Nintendo Switch has sold 156.59 million units, close to the more than 160 million of the PlayStation 2.

Console sales are slowing as the generation ages and prices rise. PS5 shipments fell 36 percent year on year in the April to June 2026 quarter, to 1.6 million units, and US hardware spending has been weak through 2026. Digital downloads now account for 82 percent of PlayStation software sales, which is why physical charts such as those in Japan and Europe capture a shrinking part of the market. Microsoft, which owns Xbox and the Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard, no longer reports console sales; its gaming strategy increasingly relies on Game Pass and releasing games on rival platforms. The broader business context is covered in our big tech revenue comparison and our data on internet company revenue.

The franchises that dominate every chart

Looking across markets, a small group of franchises appears again and again. Grand Theft Auto is the most commercially successful, with nearly 475 million units sold across the series according to Take-Two, and GTA V alone still made the US top 20 in 2025, more than 12 years after launch. Rockstar Games, also behind Red Dead Redemption 2 at more than 87 million copies, has produced two of the three best-selling single games of the past decade.

Mario Kart is the most reliable hit maker in console gaming. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, originally a 2014 Wii U game re-released on the Switch in 2017, has sold 71.53 million copies, and its successor, Mario Kart World, sold 15.39 million in roughly its first year and topped the Japanese chart. Pokemon is another constant: Pokemon Legends: Z-A was the second best-selling game in both Japan and Europe in 2025. Annual sports franchises such as EA Sports FC, Madden NFL, NBA 2K and MLB The Show rarely top global all-time lists but sell millions of copies every year, which is why they fill so many places in annual charts, especially in the United States and Europe.

Call of Duty shows that even the biggest franchise can slip. The series had been the best-selling game in the United States almost every year since 2009, but Black Ops 7 finished fifth in 2025 as Battlefield 6 took the crown. Its publisher, Activision, is now owned by Microsoft, which puts Call of Duty on its Game Pass subscription service on launch day, a move that shifts some players from buying the game to playing it through a subscription and therefore lowers its position in sales charts.

China: the biggest market with its own hits

China is the largest games market in the world by revenue, at 54.6 billion dollars in 2025 on the final Newzoo estimate, yet it rarely features in global best-seller charts. Most of its spending goes on free-to-play mobile and PC games made by domestic companies such as Tencent and NetEase, and console sales are small by international standards. Foreign games need government approval to be sold, and the regulator issues a limited number of licences each year. Chinese studios are increasingly exporting their own premium games, however, led by the action game Black Myth: Wukong in 2024, and Chinese-developed strategy games took four of the top ten places by mobile revenue in the United States in 2025, according to Circana.

What comes next

The next year will test how big a single game can be. Grand Theft Auto VI arrives in November 2026 into a market where console hardware is expensive, spending is flat and players are spread across more platforms than ever. If it matches its predecessor, it could sell tens of millions of copies in its first weeks and lift the whole industry. Meanwhile, the Switch 2 is set to extend Nintendo dominance in Japan, EA Sports FC will almost certainly top Europe again, and long-running favourites such as Minecraft will keep adding millions of sales every year.

Beyond individual hits, the business is changing shape. More spending goes on subscriptions and in-game purchases than on boxed games, mobile accounts for more than half of revenue, and many of the most-played games are free. Best-seller charts measure only part of that picture, but they remain the clearest guide to which games capture the public imagination in each market. For more on how people spend their screen time, see our data on App Store apps by category, mobile operating system market share and video game TV adaptations on Netflix.

Best-selling video games in numbers

A few figures sum up the market.

Together they show an industry built on a handful of enormous hits and a few very large markets.

Frequently Asked Questions