October was a massive month for new releases, with eight of the top 10 games sold in the U.S. fresh launches. But as usual, none could quite touch the success of Call of Duty, and Black Ops 6 gave the franchise another debut at No.1 even with its inclusion in Xbox Game Pass.
This information comes from Circana's monthly report on U.S. video game spending by dollar sales, which saw Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 drive overall video game spending up 10% year-over-year to $4.7 billion, per an analysis by Circana's Mat Piscatella. It was the best-selling game of the month and is already the third best-selling game of the year to-date. In its first two weeks, Black Ops 6 sales were 23% higher than last year's Modern Warfare 3 sales over the same period.
Interestingly, a whopping 82% of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 full dollar sales were on PlayStation 5. But that shouldn't come as a surprise - this number counts full game purchases, and with Black Ops 6 appearing on Game Pass, it's likely most Xbox users took that route instead. But Circana also reports that non-mobile video game subscription spending industry-wide was up 16% year-over-year in October, and this was largely due to Black Ops 6 driving new Game Pass subscriptions.
Following Black Ops 6 on the sales charts was Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, which is now the fourth best-selling game of the year so far, the best-selling Dragon Ball game in the U.S., and the third best-selling Bandai Namco game in history. Only Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3 have done better from Bandai's portfolio.
Third was the Silent Hill 2 remake, which is also officially the second best-selling Silent Hill game ever. It's beaten by, funnily enough, the original Silent Hill 2. BioWare's Dragon Age: The Veilguard debuted at No.6 after launching on the last day of the month, but was beaten out by both Plaion's Undisputed at No.4 and fellow RPG Metaphor: ReFantazio at No.5.
A few other interesting titles popped into the U.S. charts this month. The Final Fantasy I-VI Collection climbed from 90 last month to 19 this month perhaps due to a recent sale on the Nintendo Switch that dropped the price from a whopping $75 to nearly $55 (it's still going on!). Meanwhile, Sifu soared from No.502 last month to No.9 on the Xbox top monthly active users chart, thanks to its recent addition to Xbox Game Pass.
As for hardware sales, it was an unsurprisingly less stellar month. Hardware spending was down 23% year-over-year, with Switch sales down 38%, PS5 down 20%, and Xbox Series down 18%. PS5 remains the best-selling hardware in both unit and dollar sales, and Xbox followed in second as the Switch nears the end of its lifecycle. Over in accessories, the PlayStation Portal was the best-selling item, and accessories spending was up 15%. Black Friday sales are also now live, with Xbox leading with plenty of deals.
Here are the top 20 best-selling games in the U.S. for the month of October, based on dollar sales:
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
- Silent Hill 2
- Undisputed
- Metaphor: ReFantazio
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard
- Super Mario Party Jamboree!*
- Madden NFL 25
- Sonic X Shadow Generations
- EA Sports FC 25
- EA Sports College Football 25
- The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom*
- Hogwarts Legacy
- NHL 25
- Astro Bot
- Minecraft*
- NBA 2K25
- Life Is Strange: Double Exposure
- Final Fantasy I-VI Bundle
- Elden Ring
* Indicates that some or all digital sales are not included in Circana's data. Some publishers, including Nintendo and Take-Two, do not share certain digital data for this report.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
