As he does every month, Circana senior director and video game industry analyst Mat Piscatella has shared the sales charts for video game software sales in the United States on social media, offering a month-by-month look at what people in the US are buying and where they're spending the most. Unsurprisingly for February 2026, it was Resident Evil Requiem landing at the top of the sales charts, though sales for Capcom's new survival horror on its own wasn't what kept the overall spend from declining.
Compared to February 2025, overall spend by consumers in video games stayed flat in February 2026 thanks to spending on subscription services, things like Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, and Nintendo Switch Online. If you've followed our coverage of Circana's tracking, that won't be a surprise to you either, because spending on subscriptions is what drove overall growth in the US in 2025.
It's where platform holders are making a big chunk of change, and it's the area that, if it began to struggle, would really put the three major platform holders in danger. But for now, it's what kept spending numbers in the US from taking a dive, growing 27% compared to February 2025 (arguably due to price increases), keeping overall spend from last year to this year mostly flat, alongside the success of Resident Evil Requiem.
Not only did Requiem hit the top of the sales charts for the month of February, but its success has made it an early contender to be one of the best-selling games of 2026 in the US. We're not even three months into the year, and it is unlikely to hold that top spot throughout (especially come November), but Monster Hunter Wilds was able to remain in the top-five best-selling games in the US for 2025 because of its strong launch, and Requiem doesn't have half of the technical problems Wilds did.
So while it won't hold onto the spot for now, as we move through the rest of the year and Requiem eventually starts to go on sale, it'll likely remain in the top-20 best-selling games in the US for 2026, even if it doesn't do as well as Wilds and stay in the top-five.
Besides, sometimes all a game needs is a good sale to be back in the charts. That was the story with DOOM: The Dark Ages in February, as it got back into the top-10 best-selling games on PC thanks to a major sale last month, all the way from 92nd place.
Diablo II: Resurrected made a similarly big jump, going from 195th place in the overall charts all the way to 13th in the sales charts for the best-selling games of the month. On PC sales charts specifically, it went from 83rd place to 2nd place on the monthly charts. Though all of that wasn't due to a sale, it was the release of the Warlock class and the new Reign of the Warlock content revealed last month.
A final note on Requiem, compared to Resident Evil Village, its launch sales were 60% higher than its predecessor. With over 6 million copies sold already, Requiem is clearly a big win all-around for Capcom.
Other notable elements of Piscatella's report include hardware spending increasing by 22% compared to Feb 2025, and while the best-selling bit of hardware for the month was the PlayStation 5, it was Nintendo Switch 2 sales that, like subscription spending, kept hardware spending from going on a decline.
As for the Switch 2, nine months into its life cycle, Nintendo's new hybrid hardware is trending 45% ahead of the Switch 1 in terms of its life-to-date install base. It's a good sign for Nintendo that the Switch 2 continues to grow, especially as Nintendo has a lot in store for this year that it hopes will help the Switch 2 along, like the upcoming Super Mario Bros Galaxy Movie.
Overall, video game spending in the US for February 2026 wasn't great, but it also wasn't awful. A middle-of-the-road month that is likely to be followed up by a much stronger showing in March, as we've already seen a few major releases between Slay the Spire 2, Crimson Desert, Marathon, Pokémon Pokopia, MLB The Show 26, WWE 2K26, and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach making its arrival on PC.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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