The video game industry is entering a critical year — and the data matters more than ever.
In this episode of the Xbox Expansion Pass, Circana video game industry analyst Mat Piscatella joins the show to break down what the numbers are actually telling us about gaming heading into 2026. From hardware pricing and consumer behavior to subscriptions, blockbuster releases, and long-term industry trends, this is a grounded, data-driven conversation focused on facts over hype.
Topics Include:
Why 2026 could be a record year for U.S. game spending
What rising hardware prices mean for players and platforms
How subscriptions are changing player behavior
Why fewer games are dominating sales — and what that means
What recent layoffs and restructuring signal for the industry
Clear takes. Thoughtful discussion. No console-war noise.
Listen on audio platforms or watch the full conversation here on YouTube.
Randomly scrolled to 33 minutes in and wow that was perfect for me lol. He talks about how because the economy itself is K shaped and we see the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer, that’s coming through in gaming with trends popping up to target older more affluent individuals with pricing and pricing lower income groups out or leaving them with free to play. That feels like a major problem in console gaming where it’s becoming known and exploited that gamers skew older and younger gamers aren’t as interested in console gaming. So suddenly there’s less reason not to price things in the console space higher.
What happens in gaming, as with other industries, has always been linked to the state of capitalism. Gaming was just kind of protected for a while where we really had it too good, but it catches up eventually, this system optimizes for money. It’s why I always taken issue with people who discuss gaming as if it doesn’t exist within the same system and politics that govern every other facet of our lives
Something’s got to give with the traditional console market. Hardware will cost more and more, offer less and less of an upgrade, and meanwhile today’s kids aren’t even interested in a $700 top of the line console because they’re mostly playing Fortnite and Roblox anyway. Or they just want a portable PC instead of a traditional console.
I think we’re in for a lot of meltdowns over the next few years as the old-school console warriors slowly come to grips with the fact that the market doesn’t look like it did when they were kids, basically.
Listen on audio platforms or watch the full conversation here on YouTube.