Marvel’s Wolverine Leads US Game Sales as PS5 Sales Rise 22%
?s Wolverine debuted as the best-selling game in the United States in September, according to Circana data reported by Dark Horizons. The PlayStation 5…
Marvel’s Wolverine topped game sales in the United States in September, giving PlayStation 5 a major hit as console hardware sales moved in sharply different directions. The game, published by PlayStation and developed by Insomniac Games, also posted the highest launch-month dollar sales for a Sony-published title since Helldivers II in early 2024, according to analytics firm Circana, as reported by Dark Horizons.
The result matters beyond the game’s chart position: PlayStation 5 unit sales increased 22% year on year in September, while total video game hardware unit sales fell 3%. Switch 2 sales declined 14% and Xbox Series sales dropped 27%, according to the report.
Wolverine leads the US chart
Circana’s ranking includes physical and digital sales. Marvel’s Wolverine debuted at No. 1 in the United States for the month, ahead of the titles Dark Horizons said it had surpassed, including Stellar Blade, Ghost of Yotei, Death Stranding 2, Astro Bot, Marathon and Saros, as well as remasters and remakes of Horizon: Zero Dawn, Days Gone and Until Dawn.
The game was available for only half of September, yet ranked as the second-best-selling PS5 game globally that month. EA Sports FC 27 placed ahead of it in that worldwide PS5 ranking.
That distinction gives the US debut added weight for Sony’s release. The sales figure measures launch-month dollars, not copies sold, and the source does not provide a unit total for Wolverine. Still, the comparison with Helldivers II marks its strongest Sony-published launch month on that measure since early 2024.
Console sales split across platforms
PlayStation 5 revenue increased 43% compared with the same period a year earlier, Dark Horizons reported. Sony hardware sales reached their highest level since May 2025, with the report pointing to Wolverine and the pending release of GTA6 as contributing factors.
Hardware demand was not uniform. PlayStation 5 was the only console named in the report to record year-on-year growth: Switch 2 unit sales fell 14%, while Xbox Series sales fell 27%. The report said Xbox console unit sales had reached an all-time low.
For players and the industry, those divergent figures show why a hit game and a broader hardware slowdown can coexist. Sony’s rise came as total hardware units sold contracted, while declines on rival platforms pulled the overall market lower. The available report does not break out how much of PlayStation’s increase came from Wolverine versus other factors.
New releases also dominated the wider US game chart: eight of September’s top ten best-selling games were new titles. NBA 2K27 overtook Resident Evil: Requiem to become the best-selling game of 2026 year-to-date in the United States, according to Dark Horizons. The report noted online backlash around both NBA 2K27 and Wolverine, for different reasons, but did not detail the complaints.
007 First Light, MLB: The Show 26 and Crimson Desert occupied the third through fifth positions on the September list. Wolverine’s US debut, meanwhile, came alongside a 22% year-on-year increase in PlayStation 5 unit sales.
Source: darkhorizons.com
