Starfield was the best-selling game in the US last month, with PS5 remaining the top console

Video game analyst group Circana has released its highlights for the US video game market for September 2023, and in it the company reveals that developer Bethesda Game Studios’ Starfield was the best-selling game last month, the month it launched. And after just six weeks on the market, Starfield is already the seventh best-selling game of the year. February’s “Hogwarts Legacy” remains at the top.

Starfield released on Xbox and PC on September 6th, and while the release of Xbox Game Pass certainly helped make it the biggest launch ever for a Bethesda game with more than 6 million players, Circana’s data tracks sales in dollars. This made Starfield the best-selling game in September despite Xbox Game Pass. Mat Piscatella, CEO of Circana, said on Twitter: “Starfield was the best-selling title of the month on both Xbox and PC, with PC being the leading sales platform.”

Other big September releases like Mortal Kombat 1, EA Sports FC 24, Payday 3, NBA 2K24 and The Crew: Motorfest also appear on Circana’s list of the 20 best-selling games of the last month.

Here are the 10 best-selling games in September 2023:

1. Starfield (re-release)
2. Mortal Kombat 1 (Re-release)
3. EA Sports FC 24 (Re-release)
4. Madden NFL 24
5. Payday 3 (re-release)
6. NBA 2K24 (Re-release)
7. The Crew: Motorfest (Re-release)
8. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
9. Hogwarts legacy
10. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022)

And here are the ten best-selling games of 2023 since the beginning of the year:

1. Hogwarts legacy
2. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (digital sales not included)
3. Madden NFL 24
4. Diablo IV
5. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022)
6. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
7. Starfield (re-release)
8. Mortal Kombat 1 (Re-release)
9. Resident Evil 4 (2023)
10. MLB: The Show 23 (digital sales not included)

The full top 20 for September 2023 can be found here and the full top 20 for the entire year can be found here.

According to Piscatella, Mortal Kombat 1 was September’s best-selling game on PlayStation platforms and took second place on Xbox and PC, where Starfield took first place. Mortal Kombat 1 took third place on the Switch, despite the game’s disastrous launch status on the platform.

Elsewhere in the Circana report, U.S. spending on video game content, hardware and accessories increased 10% year over year to a total of $4.5 billion. Piscatella said the increase in spending on content and accessories offset an 8% decline in hardware. U.S. spending on video game products rose 2% year-to-date to $39.4 billion. He also points out that the increase in spending on premium digital downloads on consoles and PC accounted for the majority of the spending increases in September 2023.

Despite Starfield’s clear success in September, the PlayStation 5 remained the best-selling hardware platform in both unit and dollar sales; Xbox Series X/S again took second place in both measurements. According to Piscatella, the PS5 continues to lead hardware sales in 2023, both in units and dollars, and year-to-date hardware spending is down 10% to $3.7 billion compared to this time last year gone up.

The Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 PS5 DualSense controller was last month’s best-selling accessory, and spending on accessories increased 11% during the month compared to September 2022, reaching $197 million.

For more information, see Game Informer’s Starfield review and then check out Game Informer’s Hogwarts Legacy Review. Then read Game Informer’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 review ahead of the game’s release on Friday.

Have you played Starfield last month? Let us know in the comments below!