October 2024 Sales Charts: Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Sparks Xbox Game Pass Subscription Surge

ign.com:

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