January is typically a quiet month for video games, and 2025 was no different. With only one new game release making it into the top 20 and the expected dominance of Call of Duty, there wasn't much to celebrate from last month... except for what might be a comeback story for one of last year's alleged sales disappointments: Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth.
Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth launched in February 2024 at No.2 on Circana's charts, which rank video games by dollar sales in the U.S. It then fell to No.7 the following month and ended the year at No.17. Although these numbers are respectable, post-launch discussions questioned whether the game met Square Enix's expectations or performed well compared to other major RPGs released that year, such as Dragon's Dogma 2 or its predecessor, Final Fantasy 7: Remake. Square Enix admitted that the game did not meet its sales targets and did not release any sales figures, indicating it might not have performed as well as hoped.
However, Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth was initially a PS5 exclusive, and platform exclusives often struggle with sales compared to multi-platform releases. As of January 2025, Rebirth is no longer exclusive, having launched on Steam and jumping from No.56 in December to No.3 on the Circana charts. The Final Fantasy 7: Remake & Rebirth Twin Pack also saw a significant rise, going from No.265 in December to No.16 in January, thanks to the Steam release.
That's not all. Circana analyst Mat Piscatella highlighted on Bluesky that Rebirth had a "fantastic" Steam launch: "Across physical & tracked digital, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth was the best-selling game of the week ending Jan 25th in the US market ($ sales), while the FFVII Remake & Rebirth Twin Pack ranked 3rd."
While this is specific to the U.S., it's likely indicative of similar trends globally, which could influence Square Enix to consider multi-platform launches for future Final Fantasy releases. When asked about the impact of the Steam release, Piscatella commented:
"I mean it's hard for me to say what impact the Steam release has on publisher perception of overall title success. That's subject to all kinds of internal planning and expectations I'm not privy to, of course. But purely looking at consumer response, it was a very good launch month on Steam. This launch does provide yet another benchmark that shows releasing on PC makes a ton of sense at this point regardless of genre or historical release strategies.
"For 3rd party publishers, it's looking harder and harder to release exclusively on a single platform without significant incentives provided by the platform holder."
We'll have to wait until Square Enix's next earnings call in May to see their official response. Stay tuned.
As for the rest of the charts, it's no surprise that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 topped the sales charts again, followed by Madden NFL 25. The only new release to break into the top 20 in January was Donkey Kong Country: Returns on Nintendo Switch, reaching No.8 based solely on physical sales (Nintendo does not share digital sales data for its eShop).
Also noteworthy was the return of It Takes Two to the top 20 at No.20. According to Piscatella, there's no single reason for this resurgence. "There has been promotion happening during the month, including the last week of Jan on both the PlayStation store and eShop," he said. "But really, It Takes Two had pretty steady sales all month. But it was in December that It Takes Two really started its latest rally with both sales and engagement upticks that extended into January."
Much of the promotion for It Takes Two is in anticipation of Hazelight Studios' next game, Split Fiction, set to release in March.
Overall, gaming spending in January 2025 looked disappointing compared to January 2024. This year's January had a four-week tracking period, while last year's had five weeks, resulting in a whole extra week to generate revenue. Consequently, overall spending dropped by 15% to $4.5 billion for the month (it was 0.3% ahead of January 2023's four-week period). Accessories spending decreased by 28% year-over-year.
Content spending was down 12% compared to last year, with console content down 35%. Hardware spending fell by 45%. PS5 hardware spending was down 38% year-over-year, Xbox Series was down 50%, and Switch was down 53%. Despite this, the PS5 was the best-selling hardware of the month in both dollars and units, with the Xbox Series coming in second in hardware spending, and the Switch a close second in unit sales.
The top 20 best-selling games in the U.S. for January 2025, based on dollar sales, are:
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- Madden NFL 25
- Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
- EA Sports FC 25
- Minecraft*
- Marvel's Spider-Man 2
- EA Sports College Football 25
- Donkey Kong Country Returns*
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Sonic Generations
- Helldivers II
- Astro Bot
- Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
- Super Mario Party Jamboree*
- Elden Ring
- Final Fantasy VII Remake & Rebirth Twin Pack
- Mario Kart 8*
- The Crew: Motorfest
- UFC 5
- It Takes Two*
- Indicates that some or all digital sales are not included in Circana's data. Some publishers, including Nintendo and Take-Two, do not share certain digital data for this report.
