PS5 Best-Selling Console in the US in January, Palworld Most Popular Game on Steam

by
William D’Angelo
, posted 1 day ago / 4,843 Views

The PlayStation 5 was the best-selling console in the US in January 2024 in terms of units sold and dollar sales, according to figures from Circana (formerly The NPD Group). Circana includes the dates for the five week period of December 31 to February 3. It should be noted January 2023 was a four week perioud.

The Nintendo Switch was second best-selling console in terms of units sold, however, it ranked third in terms of dollar sales. This does mean the Xbox Series X|S came in third in terms of units sold, but came in second in terms of dollar sales.

After 39 months on the market, lifetime sales of the PlayStation 5 is tracking seven percent ahead of the PlayStation 4 and 68 percent ahead of the PlayStation 3.

The Xbox Series X|S is the only console to see growth year-over-year with sales up in the double-digit percentage range. Portable PC devices are included in the hardware revenue, which also saw growth compared to a year ago.

Overall spending on video games in January was up 15 percent year-on-year from $4.42 billion to $5.07 billion. Spending on video game content increased 15 percent from $3.86 billion to $4.45 billion, while video game hardware sales was down four percent from $396 million to $378 million. Spending on accessories increased 45 percent from $169 million to $246 million.

“Projected total market spending on video game hardware, content and accessories grew 15% in January compared to a year ago, reaching $5.1B,” said Circana Executive Director and Video Game Industry Analyst Mat Piscatella.

Piscatella added, “A 15% increase in total projected spending on video game content drove the market’s overall gain. Growth in digital content spending across Console, PC and VR platforms, along with a 5% increase in mobile games spending (mobile source: Sensor Tower) led the way.”

Palworld was the biggest story for new releases in January 2024. It was the most popular game on Steam for the month in the US in terms of monthly active users, while it came in third place on Xbox platforms behind Fortnite and Call of Duty HQ. The game did not appear on the premium charts as the publisher does not share digital sales.

Fortnite once again led monthly active users on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, followed by Call of Duty HQ on both platforms. Enshrouded, along with Palworld, was one of two new releases in the top 10 monthly active users on the tracked platforms, placing seventh on Steam.

There were six new releases on the top 20 best-selling games chart for the tracked titles. Tekken 8 debuted in second place with unit and dollar sales higher than June 2017’s Tekken 7.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League debuted in third place with sales lower than Batman: Arkham Knight.

Persona 3: Reload debuted in fourth place and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth debuted in seventh place. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown debuted in 13th place and Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash debuted in 19th place.

Here are the top 20 best-selling games in terms of dollars for January 2024:

Here are the top 10 games played on the PlayStation 5 ranked by monthly active users:

Here are the top 10 games played on the Xbox Series X|S ranked by monthly active users:

Here are the top 10 games played on Steam ranked by monthly active users:

Here are the top 10 best-selling premium games on PlayStation platforms in January 2024:

Here are the top 10 best-selling premium games on Xbox platforms in January 2024:

Here are the top 10 best-selling premium games on Nintendo platforms in January 2024:

A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.