Video game analyst group Sarcana has released its November 2023 US Video Game Market Highlights Report And in it, the company reveals that, surprisingly, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III was the best-selling game of the month. It launched on November 10 on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC and is the second best-selling game of 2023 behind Hogwarts Legacy.
The annual Call of Duty game always sells well — it’s held the top spot in November for five years running — so today’s results aren’t surprising. However, what’s new this time around is that Modern Warfare III is now an Xbox-owned game, after Microsoft successfully completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard for a whopping $69 billion. Also, notably, although Modern Warfare III was poorly reviewed – It holds a 56 on MetacriticThe reboot is the lowest in the Modern Warfare series, and gets a 5 out of 10 Game Informer – It’s still selling well, per usual.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III was the best-selling game in November, instantly becoming the 2nd best-selling game of the year 2023 to date. A Call of Duty title is the best-selling November title for the 5th year in a row (Red Dead Redemption II was No. 1 in November 2018).
— Matt Piscatella (@MattPiscatella) December 13, 2023
However, on both PlayStation and Xbox, it was the most played free-to-play game of the month on both platforms, behind Fortnite.
Here are the top 10 best selling games of November 2023:
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- The Hogwarts Legacy
- Madden NFL 24
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder
- EA Sports FC 24
- Super Mario RPG
- Mortal Kombat 1
- NBA 2K24
- UFC 5
And here are the year-to-date top 10 best-selling games in 2023:
- The Hogwarts Legacy
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- Madden NFL 24
- Diablo IV
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
- Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
- Mortal Kombat 1
- Starfield
In terms of platforms, the PlayStation 5 remains the best-selling hardware platform in November in terms of both unit and dollar sales. The Xbox Series X/S is second for both measures. The newly released PlayStation Portal was the fourth best-selling platform in November.
Overall, US consumer spending on video game content, hardware and accessories fell 7 percent from last year to $5.9 billion. Circana Executive Director Matt Piscatella says The decline was driven by a 24 percent drop in hardware spending to $964 million and a 3 percent drop in content to $4.6 billion.
“All current-generation consoles have experienced double-digit percentage declines in dollar sales compared to a year ago, with the Nintendo Switch showing the sharpest year-over-year decline,” writes Piscatella. Twitter.
For more, check out October 2023’s best-selling games and then read the September 2023 video game spending results. read Game Informers Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III review and then find out what we thought of Hogwarts Legacy.
Are you playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III? Let us know what you think about it in the comments below!