Earlier today, I did some reporting on U.S. video game market data shared by Circana. Circana publishes reports publicly every month on which games are selling very well, which consoles are doing better than others, and how the industry is doing in the U.S. overall. This sort of thing is mostly helpful for insiders who actually work in the space and need this data to make decisions or predictions, but it’s also useful and good just to have in the public eye. It helps us better understand why certain games might get made, it can be used to identify causes and effects over time, and it just generally improves our overall understanding of how video games are made, bought, sold, and played.
Unfortunately, Circana’s reporting has recently lost two seriously valuable data sources: Xbox and EA.
As of July 2026, Xbox is “no longer a digital data sharing panel participating publisher” with Circana, as was confirmed by the company today (Xbox and EA have not yet responded to a request for comment). When I reached out to Circana to get a look at what publishers remained on the panel, I was also informed that EA had recently dropped its membership, “time aligned to its going private.”
What does that mean? Well, in order for Circana to tell us how well things sold, it needs someone who knows that information to pass it along. For physical games, that information comes from retailers and a few other sources that track purchases. But for digital sales taking place through digital storefronts like the eShop, the PlayStation Store, and the Microsoft Store, that data either needs to come from the owners of the platforms, or from the companies actually selling the games (the publishers).
Circana’s “digital data sharing panel” is essentially a group of publishers that willingly share some or all of that digital data, and until recently, Xbox and EA were a part of it. That means they shared data on games sold on on their storefronts, so we had accurate information about how well games sold on the Xbox and EA digital storefronts were doing in every Circana report. This was in stark contrast to, say, Nintendo, who does not share digital data and whose appearance in Circana’s charts is based off (well-educated) estimates and analysis. In the past, when companies such as Ubisoft and Take-Two dropped off the panel, it was helpful that Circana could still get some idea of their games’ digital sales through storefronts like Xbox, even if it wasn’t getting them from elsewhere (Take-Two eventually returned to the panel, Ubisoft has not).
Xbox dropping out is a huge problem in particular. It not only eliminates transparency on Xbox first-party digital games in the U.S., (including Call of Duty, you know, the most consistently massive annual franchise of all time) but also further obscures the sales of any other publishers not already voluntarily sharing data with Circana, such as Ubisoft and now EA. As a result, the software charts this month are full of guesswork. This is not to fault the analysts at Circana, who do excellent data-based, analytical work. At this point, it’s either this or nothing, and I’ll take a smart guess any day.
I also expect this problem to become worse in the coming years. Digital sales already make up a huge chunk of sales in general, meaning that only getting physical data hardly presents us with a full picture. PlayStation is ending disc production entirely in 2028, which means we’ll be entirely dependent on PlayStation to tell firms like Circana what goes on with sales of their new first-party games, and PlayStation could always look at what Xbox and Nintendo are doing and decide it’s out, too. Xbox is expected to follow suit in ending discs eventually as well; its physical sales already seem pretty low compared to those of its competitors. And we already don’t know anything sales-wise about Steam or Blizzard (via Battle.net sales).
For now, we’re left with Bandai Namco, Capcom, Crystal Dynamics, Disney Interactive Studios, Eidos, Konami, Plaion, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Take-Two, and Warner Bros. on the panel. Woof.
It’s also worth noting that I’ve seen multiple posts from individuals suggesting Xbox has also pulled out of Game Sales Data (GSD), which fulfills a similar role to Circana, but over in Europe, but no word yet from official sources. I’m reaching out and working to confirm that. If true, that’s an even greater loss of transparency and data.
For most people who play video games, there’s no expectation that you care about how many copies a game sells or how much money it makes. But the gradual erosion of transparency we’ve seen in the industry is ultimately hurtful to players anyway, because it allows companies to more tightly control narratives around their games. If analysts and journalists can’t see accurate numbers, then companies can easily lie about, or obfuscate, what’s going on with a game. They can claim something was unpopular and use that to justify a layoff, or try to excuse terrible, anti-consumer decision-making by saying something is more popular than it is.
More than anything else, I don’t want my information diet around my hobby controlled by multi-billion-dollar corporations that exist only to make money off me. I’d rather have accurate information out there for when I need it, or when a journalist or analyst needs it to tell me something that is relevant to my life and habits. The games industry as a whole just keeps getting less and less transparent by the day in dozens of different, irritating ways, and I’m worried we soon won’t be able to see anything clearly at all.