October was a busy month, seeing the launch of a number of major new titles, and many of them performed well in the United States upon release, as per sales data for the month shared by Circana analyst Mat Piscatella on BlueSky.
Unsurprisingly, on top of the software charts for the month is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which has also instantly become the third-highest selling game of the year in the US. In terms of dollar sales, its launch is 23 bigger than that of last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, with 82 percent of its October sales coming on PS5 and PS4.
Trailing behind in second place is Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO, which has also got off to a quick start. It has instantly become the fourth-highest selling game of the year in the US, in addition to becoming not only the bestselling Dragon Ball game in the US to date in dollar sales (yes, already), but also Bandai Namco’s third-highest selling game of all time in the region, behind Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3.
In third place in the charts we have Konami and Bloober Team’s remake of Silent Hill 2. It’s already become the No. 2 bestselling game in the Silent Hill series in the region to date, behind the original Silent Hill 2.
Meanwhile, several other major titles that launched in October also occupy in the US’ charts for the month, with Steel City Interactive and Plaion’s Undisputed (No. 4), Atlus and Sega’s Metaphor: ReFantazio (No. 5), BioWare and EA’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard (No. 6), Nintendo Cube and Nintendo’s Super Mario Party Jamboree (No. 7), Sonic Team and Sega’s Sonic X Shadow Generations, and Deck Nine and Square Enix’s Life is Strange: Double Exposure (No. 18).
On the hardware side of things, consumer spending in the US dropped 23 percent in October year-on-year, with a total of 604,000 hardware units sold (down from 759,000 in October last year). PS5 was the bestselling console of the month in the US in dollar and unit sales, while Xbox Series X/S took second place in both metrics. However, all consoles saw a year-on-year drop in sales, with Switch dollar sales slipping by 38 percent, PS5 sales by 20 percent, and Xbox Series X/S sales by 18 percent.