US sales analyst group Circana has released its gaming industry sales data for February 2024, and I'll give you three guesses as to which game managed to come out on top.
Given the fact that it passed 450,000 concurrent players on Steam just a couple of weeks after its release, it's no surprise that Arrowhead Game Studios' Helldivers 2 was Circana's best-selling premium game last month.
Naturally, Helldivers 2 also topped the PlayStation 5 best-selling chart, as well as the Steam chart for player engagement (although Fortnite still held the title for most player engagement on PS5).
Of course, since Helldivers 2 isn't available on Xbox, the top-selling game across Microsoft's consoles in February was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, which remains phenomenally popular.
The latest entry in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series of puzzlers tops the Nintendo Switch chart for February, followed by Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
Despite being released on the very last day of the month, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth was February's fourth best-selling premium game, as well as the PlayStation 5's second best-selling game of the month.
Ubisoft's pirate adventure Skull and Bones was the second best-selling Xbox game of the month, but it doesn't figure in Circana's Xbox player engagement chart, nor its PS5 equivalent. Ouch.
In hardware terms, the PS5 emerged on top for both unit and dollar sales, while the Switch came second in unit sales and the Xbox Series S won the silver medal in dollar sales.
Hardware spending across the board decreased by 30% compared to last February, but accessory spending increased by 25%, driven by controller spending and a new Remote Play Devices category, which includes the PlayStation Portal.
As ever, it's well worth reading analyst Mat Piscatella's full thread, as it contains lots of nerdy and fascinating stats about the game industry. You can check the thread out here.
