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This summer, the Switch 2 became the best-selling console in Nintendo history, selling 10.36 million units in the first four months of sales.
Guillaume Payen | Sopa Images | Light flare | Getty Images
It was a monumental year for the video game industry, marked by new devices and billion-dollar deals.
Further consolidation occurred within the sector when a consortium led by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, alongside Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners and Silver Lake, announced plans take Electronic arts private. The $55 billion deal, including $20 billion in debt financing, constitutes the largest leveraged buyout in Wall Street history.
The move could have major implications for EA, according to Omdia analysts. The question now, they say, is whether the PIF plans to run EA as a “public relations project” or “to extract maximum returns” from the company.
French game developer Ubisoft has looked to turn things around this year, even though it started 2025 a second time behind the last entry in its flagship Assassin’s Creed series, Shadows.
Ubisoft stock was boosted in March after announcing the creation of a new gaming subsidiary with the Chinese technology giant Tencent called Vantage Studios. The new developer, which will be partly owned by Tencent, will focus on Ubisoft’s key IPs: Far Cry, Assassin’s Creed and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six.
Despite Ubisoft’s efforts, the stock has lost just over half its value since the start of the year and the stock is down more than 90% from its 2021 high.
On the other hand, Interactive Take-TwoShares of continued to climb throughout 2025 as anticipation grew for the next Grand Theft Auto title. It’s been 12 years since the previous edition, GTA 5, was released on Xbox 360 and PS3.
However, with radio silence on GTA 6 for most of the year, fans speculated that a further delay from the May 26, 2026 release date was being considered, although Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told CNBC in May that he had a “very, very high belief” that the planned date would be achievable. In November this year, the the game has been postponed to November 19, 2026, with Take-Two shares falling on the news.
The game will launch in the twilight window for Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft‘s Xbox Series X and S – six years after the release of both consoles. As the focus turns to the next generation of consoles, this latest generation has seen a shift in strategy for both brands.
Console policy change
Xbox has moved away from exclusive games, with titles such as Indiana Jones, Forza Horizon and more coming to PS5, while PlayStation continues to experiment more by releasing titles on PC.
Take-Two’s Zelnick argued that changing strategies will allow the video game industry to become more open. When asked if consoles would be around in the next five to 10 years, he said consoles would still be around, with devices moving toward PCs as “business moves toward opening rather than closing.”
“But if you define the console as the property, not the system, then the notion of a very rich game that you engage with for many hours, that you play on the big screen, will never go away,” he told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in November.
Consoles still have a huge role to play in the market, according to George Jijiashvili, senior principal analyst for games at Omdia. He told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” that devices remain “the go-to place for premium gaming.”
Data from Omdia shows that consoles make up the second largest category in terms of total consumer spending, with mobile spending contributing 60%, consoles reaching 23% and PC reaching 16%.
While others have mostly abandoned exclusive titles, Nintendo has continued to pursue this strategy by releasing several exclusive titles for its new Switch 2 console, including an open-world reimaging of Mario Kart and a brand new Donkey Kong game.
This summer, the Switch 2 became the best-selling console in history, sell 10.36 million units during the first four months of sale.
Not everyone is convinced by Nintendo’s strategy. Christopher Dring, founder and editor-in-chief of The Game Business, told CNBC’s “Built for Billions” in November that Nintendo faced a challenge in maintaining demand for its consoles.
“Unlike PlayStation, Xbox and other platforms, people who buy Nintendo machines buy them for Nintendo games. This means that if they don’t have a game ready, they can’t count on other developers to support them.”
