College Football 25 looks like the first genuine console-seller in quite some time

When's the last time this many people upgraded their consoles in such a short period of time?

Cover athletes for EA College Football 25.
Image via EA Sports

All it takes to finally forces gamers to upgrade to next-gen is a sequel that’s 10 years in the making, apparently.

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College Football 25 is blowing up on consoles everywhere, but it’s turning out to be a tried and true system-seller, at least for the Xbox Series S. Gamers just now finding out that the long-anticipated sequel is exclusive to next-gen are buying up the latest Xbox in droves.

Amazon CFB 25 Xbox screenshot
It’s moving consoles. Screenshot by Dot Esports

For some gamers out there, all they play is sports games. And since the last college football game last released way back in 2013, some apparently haven’t upgraded from the last generation of consoles until now after finding out that CFB 25 isn’t available on Xbox One or PlayStation 4.

As pointed out by Twitter/X user @Welfare_JBP, the Xbox Series S on Wal-Mart’s website is showing huge increase in interest, with the site displaying over 1,000+ consoles “bought since yesterday” alone. Amazon shows something similar, as illustrated in the image above, with the Xbox Series X “frequently bought together” with CFB 25 and an extra controller.

It’s hard to remember the last time a game led to moving this many next-gen consoles at once, as many players have made the migration over time. CFB 25’s massive success despite not being available on last-gen could signal to companies that the time for more next-gen exclusives may be here.

It will likely be at least a few days before sales numbers start rolling in, but this increase in interest for both Xbox and CFB 25 just goes to show the power of sports games and even casual gamers who stick to one or a few titles over several years.

Funnily enough, you, reading this right now, may even be finding out from this article that you can’t play CFB 25 on your Xbox One. In that case, sorry for the bad news, but the Series S is your cheapest option. However, that console is digital only and does not support disc-based games.

Either way, the hype for CFB 25 is real ahead of its official launch this Friday.

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Scott Duwe
Senior Staff Writer & Call of Duty lead. Professional writer for over 10 years. Lover of all things Marvel, Destiny 2, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, and more. Previous bylines include PC Gamer, Red Bull Esports, Fanbyte, and Esports Nation. DogDad to corgis Yogi and Mickey, sports fan (NY Yankees, NY Jets, NY Rangers, NY Knicks), Paramore fanatic, cardio enthusiast.