Following Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth's successful launch on Steam, the Square Enix title leaped to the No.3 spot of Circana's US charts for January.Final Fantasy 7's renewed success comes after Square Enix noted the game did "not meet expectations" following its original release in February 2024.The Final Fantasy 7 Remake & Rebirth Twin Pack also benefited from the Steam launch, skyrocketing from No.265 to No.16 in the Top 20.Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 maintained the top spot overall, also ranking No.1 on PlayStation's individual chart and No.2 on Xbox Series X|S.The only new title to release in January was Donkey Kong Country Returns, which debuted at No.8 on the overall chart and in first place on the individual platform chart for Nintendo Switch.Looking at mobile, Monopoly Go topped the charts followed by Roblox and Candy Crush Saga.
Pokémon TCG Pocket fell by three places, though it saw its second biggest week in revenue towards the end of January following an update.Streaming app ReelShort – Short Movie & TV made it into the Top Ten, falling under the interactive story sub-genre as noted by Sensor Tower's Samuel Aune."ReelShort was released in August 2022, but didn't see real traction until 2023," said Aune. "In the past two years the streaming video/game hybrid has skyrocketed, and now it's cracked the Top Ten mobile games by US monthly consumer spend."Speaking of US consumer spending, it fell 15% year-on-year to $4.5 billion.
However, it's worth noting that Circana's tracking period for January was a week shorter than the five weeks tracked in January 2024.As for video game content spend, this dropped 12% compared to the same period last year.While non-mobile subscription spending grew by 13% in addition to a 2% rise in mobile spending, it "could not offset declines across other areas of content spending" according to Circana.This includes hardware, which decreased 45% YoY to $205 million – the lowest January total since $131 million in January 2020.There were