Starfield rockets past Mortal Kombat 1 to top spot | Circana September 2023

Starfield was the best-selling game of September 2023 in the U.S. despite some stiff competition, according to industry-tracking firm Circana. It was one of six September game releases that made it into the top 10 of the bestsellers list for the month. The games industry itself saw a 10% increase in sales, though hardware sales took a slight dip year-over-year, and higher spending on games and accessories offset the decline.

“Growth in digital premium download spending across console & PC drove most of the gains,” said Mat Piscatella, Circana’s executive producer for games reports. “Video game hardware spending fell 8% when compared to a year ago, to $451 million. Single-digit percentage growth in consumer spending on Xbox Series hardware was offset by declines across both PlayStation 5 and Switch.”

This continues a trend of hardware sales in decline from the last few months, as 2022’s summer/early autumn period was a boom period after the industry fixed its supply chain issues. Here we see the 8% decline is leveling off slightly, as the August and July had 13% and 19% declines, respectively. While the growth in the gaming market drove the overall growth this month, accessories are also up, similar to last month.

“Year-to-date hardware spending was 10% higher when compared to the same period in 2022, at $3.7 billion,” added Piscatella. “Accessories spending during September increased 11% when compared to a year ago, to $197 million… The PS5 Dual Sense Wireless Controller – Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Limited Edition was the best-selling accessory of the month in consumer spending.”

Circana September 2023: Top 20 best-selling games in the U.S.

The addition of two new sports games — as well as the continued success of Madden NFL — is not much of a surprise if you look at the NPD Group (as Circana was then known) reports from this time last year. The top three games on the list were Madden, FIFA, and NBA 2K titles. This year, Madden, NBA 2K and FIFA successor EA Sports FC have taken half of the top six spots. If anything, it’s actually more surprising that two games managed to beat them to the top, and that Payday muscled out NBA 2K24 for the fifth slot.

A few games have jumped up the list from further down, including the Resident Evil 4 remake and Sea of Thieves. In the case of RE4, this is likely due to the release of the Separate Ways DLC, which garnered a lot of attention as it adapted a major part of the original title. Sea of Thieves, on the other hand, got its final Monkey Island episode in September. Microsoft also announced several new updates for the game that could have attracted interested players, including the addition of a single-player mode.

Starfield and Mortal Kombat are the big winners this month

Starfield nabbing the top spot in September is perhaps not completely unexpected, as it was a highly anticipated new IP from Bethesda. However, given how crowded September was, it’s still an accomplishment. Likewise, Mortal Kombat 1 getting second place is likely due to the series’ decades of history and recognizability.

Payday 3 is already a top seller on Steam, and Plaion announced the game had 1.3 million players in its opening weekend, so it’s also a shoo-in for the list. The Crew: Motorfest seems like an underdog addition to the list, and while it didn’t garner the sales to beat any of the sports games, Ubisoft has said that the game has had the best opening week sales out of any game in The Crew franchise.

Circana September 2023: Best-selling games of the year so far

Top three best-sellers Starfield, Mortal Kombat 1 and EA Sports FC join the year-to-date top-sellers list, and at quite high slots, too. Sometimes, new games start at the bottom of the YTD list and work their way up, but Starfield debuting at 7th place is much better. It’s not as high as, say, Diablo IV’s debut, but still a good showing. Meanwhile, Armored Core VI is taken advantage of its longer period of time on the market to bump up a few places up the list from its debut at 20th place.