Modern Warfare 3 tops November sales, natch | Circana November 2023
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Call of Duty almost always gobbles up year-end sales, and Modern Warfare 3 is no exception, according to industry-tracking firm Circana. The game topped the list of best-sellers for November, and is the fifth title in the Call of Duty series to do so. However, game and hardware sales were in decline overall for the month, dropping 7% from 2022. Hardware sales, in particular, dropped 24% year-over-year.
“November video game content spending dropped 3% when compared to a year ago, to $4.6 billion,” said Mat Piscatella, Circana’s executive producer for games reports. “An 11% decline in Console & Portable Content spending was partially offset by 3% growth across each of the Mobile, Subscription, and ‘PC, Cloud & Non-Console VR’ Content segments.”
As we noted in October, gaming hardware sales have been dropping steadily all year, with that month’s sales having the most precipitous fall of 23%. Now November appears poised to continue this trend, with a 24% drop compared with 2022. This actually brings the total number of hardware sales for 2023 down -1% compared with the year-to-date period in 2022 — it was 6% in October
Piscatella added, “A primary driver of the year-on-year decline in Console & Portable Content was the comparable strength of the new release slate. November 2022 featured the launches of both God of War: Ragnarök and Pokémon: Scarlet/Violet.”
An unusual feature of November’s chart is that several titles have jumped into the Top 20 from much lower on the sales charts. Just Dance 2024 and God of War Ragnarok moved up in part thanks to holiday sales. Similarly, Hogwarts Legacy moved back
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