Despite overwhelming criticism against its campaign length, not to mention reports of rushed development, Sledgehammer’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 topped US sales charts for November 2023, per Circana. Not only is it the fifth year that a Call of Duty title has topped US charts in November, but analyst Mat Piscatella also revealed that it’s now the second best-selling game of 2023 year-to-date.
Call of Duty HQ also ranked second in monthly active users on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, which makes sense since it’s necessary for launching Modern Warfare 3. Hogwarts Legacy is still the top-selling game of the year-to-date, ranking third in dollar sales thanks to the launch of the Nintendo Switch version. The latter was also the second best-selling title on the platform for November.
Video game content spending amounted to $4.6 billion in November, a three percent drop year over year. Piscatella notes that “comparable strength” of releases is the reason, with last year seeing the launch of God of War: Ragnarok (which has sold over 15 million units to date) and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet (23.23 million copies sold as of September 2023).