PS5 Best-Selling Console in the US in August, Xbox Series X|S Outsells Switch - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted 5 days ago / 6,918 Views
The PlayStation 5 was the best-selling console in the US in August 2023 in terms of units sold and dollar sales, according to figures from Circana (formerly The NPD Group). Circana includes the dates for the four week period of July 30 to August 26.
The Xbox Series X|S was the second best-selling console in terms of units sold and dollar sales, while the Nintendo Switch came in third place for both metrics.
PlayStation 5 dollar sales were down in the single-digit percentage in August compared to a year ago, while the Xbox Series X|S and Switch both declined by a double-digit percentage. Unit sales for the PlayStation 5 are up year-on-year, while the Xbox Series X|S and Switch are down.
2023 year-to-date the PlayStation 5 is the best-selling console in terms of both units sold and dollar sales.
Overall spending on video games in August was up three percent year-on-year from $4.08 billion to $4.20 billion. Spending on video game content increased four percent from $3.56 billion to $43.72 billion, while video game hardware sales dropped 13 percent percent from $376 million to $328 million.
Overall spending on video games in 2023 year-to-date is up two percent from $34.36 billion to $34.89 billion. Spending on video game content is up less than one percent from $30.09 billion to $30.23 billion, while video game hardware sales is up 13 percent from $2.87 billion to $3.25 billion.
"August 2023 U.S. consumer spending on video game content, hardware and accessories grew 3% vs YA, to $4.2B," said Circana Executive Director and Video Game Industry Analyst Mat Piscatella. "Growth across both content and accessories spending offset a double-digit percentage decline in hardware."
Piscatella added, "Spending on video game content in August grew 4% vs YA, to $3.7B. On console and PC platforms, growth in digital premium downloads offset declines across physical SW and digital add-ons. Non-mobile subscription spending fell 4%, while Sensor Tower reported mobile growth of 2.5%."
There were two new releases in the top 20 best-selling games. Madden NFL 24 debuted in first place and is already the sixth best-selling game of 2023. This is the 24th consecutive year a Madden NFL debuted in first place.
Launch sales for Madden NFL 24 were up by a double-digital percentage when compared to 2022's Madden NFL 23.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon debuted in second place and is the 20th best-selling game of 2023 after just one month on the market.
The launch of Baldur’s Gate 3 helped boost in the digital premium download spending in the PC, Cloud, and non-Console VR content segment by 132 percent. However, digital sales of Baldur's Gate 3 are not included in the best-sellers chart as publisher Larian Studios does not share that information.
Here are the top 20 best-selling games in terms of dollars for August 2023:
Here are the top 20 best-selling games in 2023 year-to-date:
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Point missed in the article-
PS5 unit sales for the month of Aug 2023 are higher than Aug 2022 Where as xbox and Switch units sales for Aug 2023 are lower than Aug 2022.
Confirmed by Mat piscatella on twitter.
So weird. You would think more competitive pricing, no DRM disaster (though they're still doing that), and having GP now would make them easily best the One. GP doesn't seem to have mainstream appeal
I feel like the average person doesn't even know what gamepass is.
You're thinking backwards - one point of Game Pass is ya don't need to have a Xbox console
So, having Game Pass, Microsoft becomes less reliant on only consoles. The more Game Pass has mainstream appeal, the less the mainstream needs to buy the console
I think this is the first time I've looked at the year to date sold chart, huh wouldn't have guessed Dead Island 2 would have been anywhere near the top 20 sold for the year.
Armored Core did well to break into the top 20 YTD straight away. Funny to see a mech game doing better overseas than in Japan. Bet a large percentage of purchasers have never even played a mech game before.
