We got a double dip of sales data this month from Circana, the company that tracks sales in the US, as they recently gave us August data and today they dropped the most recent September data which saw a lot of interesting results.
Overall the industry saw a 6% decline year over year compared to last September, mostly due to the 44% drop in hardware sales.
New Software Rules The Day
As is always the case around this time of year, the September chart is littered with new game releases. 7 of the top 20 were new September releases highlighted by Astro Bot (2nd), Legends Of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (4th) and Space Marine 2 (18th). It should be noted that both Zelda and Space Marine 2 data is physical sales only as Nintendo and Focus Entertainment do not release digital sales info.
The results for Astro Bot in particular is likely seen as a big success for PlayStation. Having not been one of their usual big budget games it likely wasn't expected to do as well as typical PlayStation exclusives internally, so its success is good to see. With it also being a critical darling with many critics giving it a resounding 10, including our own, it will likely continue to do well.
On the flip side at first glance this result may seem disappointing for Space Marine 2, however we know the game is doing quite well having recently announced 4.5 million players. This simply tells us the vast majority of sales were digital.
September is also a big month for sports as 3 of the new releases that charted were sports games. As is usually the case EA Sports FC 25 topped the charts with both NBA 2K25 and NHL 25 finishing inside the top 10 at 7th and 9th overall. 2K does not include digital sales either.
With this data the yearly sales charts remained largely unchanged with College Football 25, Helldivers 2, Modern Warefare 3, College Football MVP Bundle and Elden Ring maintaining the top 5. The only major changes were Madden 25 jumping to 7th on the year and EA Sports FC 25 landing in the 10th spot on the year.
New Ports Help Spike Sales
There was also a handful of games that while technically old, became new again and saw significant sales boosts. Final Fantasy XVI and God Of War Ragnarok received long awaited PC ports which vaulted both games into the top 20 again. We also saw the Dead Rising Remaster release which caused that game to jump from 502nd place to 11th.
It will be interesting to see if these games stick around on the charts or if this was a one time thing.
Hardware Sees Sharp Decline With Interesting News On Digital Consoles
The hardware market continues to come crashing down with the earlier mentioned 44% decline year over year. PlayStation 5 once again topped the charts with Xbox Series X/S finishing second. But perhaps the most interesting takeaway from all of this is the digital console sales.
For the first time ever, the Xbox Series X is now in more households than the cheaper, digital only Series S in the US according to Circana with a 51/49 split. Supply for the Series X during the first couple years of its existence were limited but it is none the less interesting that the X has just now surpassed the S.
On the PlayStation side of things the digital only version of the PlayStation 5 amounts to 18% of the total sales of the console. Perhaps more interesting though is that number is growing, with September seeing 40% of all PlayStation 5's sold being the digital only consoles.
What this all means for the industry going forward will be fascinating to watch as things shift more towards digital. As a physical game collector myself I certainly hope we don't see the day where digital is the only option.
We will also have to see what kind of impact the new PlayStation 5 Pro will have on the falling hardware market once it releases in November.
