Remnant II shoots to top of best-seller list | Circana July 2023

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Gunfire Games’ Remnant II topped the list of best-selling games this July, according to industry-tracking firm Circana. The soulslike shooter joined Steam’s best-seller list shortly after it debuted in July. Other July releases that managed to snag a place in the top 20 include Pikmin 4 and Exoprimal, the latter despite its debut on Xbox Game Pass. Older Call of Duty games are also making a resurgence.

“Spending on video game content increased by 2% in July when compared to a year ago, reaching $3.7 billion,” said Mat Piscatella, Circana’s executive producer for games reports. “On console and PC platforms, digital premium download spending gains offset declines in in physical and digital add-on purchases. Both mobile and non-mobile video game subscription spending were up slightly.”

Despite the dramatic drop in hardware sales year-over-year, overall sales are still up compared with 2022. This is likely because hardware sales last July were up thanks to the mitigation of supply chain issues. That month was also a slow one for the market thanks to the post-pandemic spending slump. So hardware sales being down while everything else is up or level isn’t a big surprise.

“Video game hardware spending fell 19% when compared to a year ago to $292 million. Declines were experienced across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and Switch,” said Piscatella. He later added that hardware is no longer compensating for supply chain issues, and that we’re “not likely to see big growth rates as we have over past