October 2023 Circana (NPD) covers the five week period from October 1 to 28.

TLDR:

Units: 1. PS5 2. NS 3. XS
Revenue: 1. PS5 2. XS 3. NS

YTD Units: 1. PS5 2. NS 3. XS
YTD Revenue: 1. PS5 2. NS 3. XS

Link to the VGChartz article here.

PS5 Best-Selling Console in the US in October, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Debuts in 1st

The PlayStation 5 was the best-selling console in the US in October 2023 in terms of units sold and dollar sales, according to figures from Circana (formerly The NPD Group). Circana includes the dates for the four week period of October 1 to 28.

The Nintendo Switch was second best-selling console in terms of units sold, but came in third place in terms of dollar sales. The Xbox Series X|S was third best-selling console in terms of units sold, but came in second place in terms of dollar sales.

All three consoles saw double-digit percentage declines in terms of dollar sales year-over-year.

2023 year-to-date the PlayStation 5 is the best-selling console in terms of both units sold and dollar sales. The Nintendo Switch comes in second place in both units sold and dollar sales, while the Xbox Series X|S comes in third place.

Overall spending on video games in October was up five percent year-on-year from $4.27 billion to $4.04 billion. Spending on video game content decreased four percent from $3.69 billion to $3.56 billion, while video game hardware sales dropped 23 percent from $426 million to $327 million.

Overall spending on video games in 2023 year-to-date is up two percent from $42.70 billion to $43.42 billion. Spending on video game content is up one percent from $37.18 billion to $37.64 billion, while video game hardware sales is up six percent from $3.79 billion to $4.03 billion.

"U.S. consumer spending on video game content, hardware and accessories fell 5% vs YA, to $4.0B," said Circana Executive Director and Video Game Industry Analyst Mat Piscatella. "Declines were experienced across all categories of spend. The dip was partially driven by Call of Duty shifting release months."

Piscatella added, "Spending on video game content in October fell 4% when compared to a year ago, to $3.6 billion. Growth in physical console software and mobile spending was offset by declines in other areas, particularly digital premium downloads driven by the release date shift of Call of Duty."

There were nine new releases in the top 20 best-selling games. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 debuted in first place and is already the fourth best-selling game of 2023. Launch month dollar sales are higher than 2018's Marvel’s Spider-Man by double-digit percentage.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder debuted in second place and is the 21st best-selling game of 2023. It should be noted Nintendo does not share digital sales for its games.

Assassin's Creed Mirage debuted in third place, UFC 5 debuted in seventh place, NHL 24 debuted in eighth place, Sonic Superstars debuted in ninth place, Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 debuted in 12th place, Forza Motorsport (2023) debuted in 17th place, and Lords of the Fallen (2023) debuted in 20th place.

Madden NFL 24 remained in fourth place, EA Sports FC 24 dropped two spots to fifth place, and Mortal Kombat 1 fell four spots to sixth place.

Here are the top 20 best-selling games in terms of dollars for October 2023:

Here are the top 20 best-selling games in 2023 year-to-date:

Here are the top 20 games played on the PlayStation 5 ranked by monthly active users:

Here are the top 20 games played on the Xbox Series X|S ranked by monthly active users:

Here are the top 20 games played on Steam ranked by monthly active users:

I honestly feel Xbox Series X/S will sell worse than the Xbox one (Globally).

Not looking great. Going into this generation I was thinking it would sell between the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. But right now it is looking like it will sell a similar amount. I am thinking it will sell better in its later years to help close the gap due to having stronger first-party support and this generation likely being 1 year longer. Although, all games being day 1 on PC must have some impact on console sales. At this point we are likely talking 55M-65M for Xbox Series X|S lifetime.

55 million is not bad. It's much bigger than many Nintendo consoles. It's not even close to the 360, but Microsoft's focus is no longer on hardware, it's on having as many users as possible, whether they are PC, Xbox or mobile.

I agree 55 million isn't that bad. Especially with Microsoft pushing Xbox outside of the console market. They are focused more on profits than selling more consoles at this point. Even if Xbox Series X|S sells less than Xbox One it will be far more profitable. 

Hardware revenue being down 23 % does not sound good, though I suppose there have been more deals this year. Neither Switch or PS5 had a particularly great October last year so I suspect Xbox is down the most.

With 9 days on the market, Spider man 2 has already outsold Diablo 4 which has been out for 5 months on 3 platforms.

Spider man franchise is officially a Juggernaut.

PS5 was #1 last year by a decent amount.

October 2022 (PS5 and XS figures were leaked, while NS are estimates with it being in 3rd):

1. PS5: 456,317
2. XS: 261,106
3. NS: 255,165

I'm still working on the estimates for October 2023, but they should be roughly around this for the US unless more data comes in:

1. PS5: ~325K
2. NS: ~205K
3. XS: ~200K

All three consoles are down YoY. For Switch that is expected, because it is old. Those are poor results for PS5 though. It's October and Spider-Man 2 clearly sold a crapload of software. This is the PS5's biggest exclusive game yet. However, it didn't move hardware. Last month the X|S had a similar story with Starfield.

This does not bode well for future hardware sales of PS5 or X|S.

Mat said double digit decline for all 3 consoles and didn't specify which had declined the most.

So why a higher percentage decline for PS5 when there is clearly no concrete info on that?