Marvel’s Wolverine was the best-selling game in the U.S. in September, according to Circana, and its launch helped push PlayStation 5 to the front of the hardware race for the month. Mat Piscatella, senior director and video game industry advisor at Circana, shared the results in a thread on Bluesky Thursday morning.
Circana ranks games on physical and full game digital dollar sales. By that measure, Wolverine debuted at No. 1 in September and is already the 11th best-selling game of 2026. Piscatella said it posted the highest launch month full game dollar sales for a Sony-published title since Helldivers II debuted in February 2024.
PS5 leads, Xbox hits a September low
PlayStation 5 hardware dollar sales grew 43% compared with September 2025, and PS5 led every platform in both unit and dollar sales, Piscatella said. Sony’s dollar share of the hardware market reached its highest point for any month since May 2025.
The other two platforms went the other way. Hardware spending fell 2% for Xbox Series and 12% for Nintendo Switch 2. In units, PS5 rose 22% while Switch 2 fell 14% and Xbox Series dropped 27%. Piscatella said Xbox ecosystem console unit sales fell to an all-time September low, beating the previous record low set a year ago.
Overall hardware spending still grew 12% to $362 million, even as total hardware units slipped 3%. Higher prices explain part of that gap. Piscatella said the average price paid for a PS5 in September was $646, up 17% from a year ago, while Xbox Series averaged $663, up 33%, and Switch 2 averaged $498, up 2%.
In a follow-up reply, Piscatella said Circana saw week-on-week hardware bumps of under 20% in the weeks ending Aug. 29 and Sept. 5, then a jump of more than 70% week on week during the week ending Sept. 19, which he read as “likely a smaller GTA reveal bump and a larger Wolverine launch bump.” He added that he was not seeing a clear, steady ramp up toward GTA.
The September top 10
NBA 2K27 finished second for the month and passed Resident Evil Requiem to become the best-selling game of 2026 so far. The rest of the September chart, in order, was EA Sports FC 27, Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, The Blood of Dawnwalker, Wardogs, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Halloween: The Game, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve and Madden NFL 27.
Piscatella noted that Madden NFL 27 sales are split across three separately tracked titles, Madden NFL 27 itself plus the EA Sports Kickoff Bundle and the EA Sports MVP Bundle, and Circana does not split bundle spending. That is why it does not show up in the year-to-date top 10.
Spending overall
Total U.S. video game spending across content, hardware and accessories fell 1% from a year ago to $4.8 billion. Year-to-date spending is 3% behind 2025’s pace at $41.0 billion. Content spending fell 2% to $4.2 billion, and non-mobile subscription spending dropped 5%, its first year-over-year monthly decline since February 2024.
Accessories were a bright spot. Spending grew 10% to $218 million, and the Wolverine Battle Yellow limited edition DualSense controller was September’s best-selling accessory in both units and dollars.
For more on how the year has gone for consoles, see RCG’s earlier report on Xbox hardware hitting an all-time low through August.
