After months without a lot of major game releases in 2022, September came out swinging with six new games ranking in the top 20 best-selling games in the US, led by (of course) FIFA 23.
Madden NFL, which came out and topped the charts last month, held it’s second place spot according to The NPD Group’s monthly charts (which track by dollar sales). It was followed by four new releases: NBA 2K23, then Splatoon 3, The Last of Us Part 1 (the 2022 remake), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection.
Saints Row, last month’s No.2, came in at No.7 in September, and then new release JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle followed.
Despite all these new releases, the overall year-to-date top ten didn’t change much, with Elden Ring still reigning as the best-selling game of the year thus far, followed by LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. Madden moved up two spots, booting down Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Horizon 2, but that’s it.
Overall, and again in spite of all the new games, content spending was down 7% in September from the prior year – subscriptions were up, but everything else was down. Meanwhile, hardware spending continues to improve thanks to increased PS5 supply, and the PS5 was the best-seller for the month in both unit and dollar sales. The Xbox Series was in second place for dollar sales, but the Switch was in second for unit sales. And both the PS5 and Xbox Series saw double-digit percentage growth.
Overall, the US spent $4.1 billion on video games, hardware, and accessories in September, down 4% from September 2021.
The following are the top 20 best-selling games for the month of September in the US in terms of dollar sales:
- FIFA 23
- Madden NFL 23
- NBA 2K23
- Splatoon 3
- The Last of Us: Part I
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection
- Saints Row (2022)
- JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle
- Elden Ring
- Mario Kart 8
- Minecraft
- Marvel’s Spider-Man
- LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
- Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War
- Horizon 2: Forbidden West
- Call of Duty: Vanguard
- Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
- MLB: The Show 22
- Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot
(Nintendo and Take-Two do not report digital sales, thus they are not factored in for any of their published games above).
Incidentally, we reviewed all six of these new September games here at IGN. You can check out our thoughts on FIFA 23, NBA 2K23, Splatoon 3 single-player and multiplayer, The Last of Us Part 1, TMNT Cowabunga Collection, and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle – all of which (we think) are good to excellent games.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.