2023 ended strong, with December’s 6.9 million game sales exceeding 2022 by 2%. It’s especially impressive considering the lack of major blockbuster titles during the Holiday season, after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 released on November 8 there’s been no Triple-A release.

Speaking of Modern Warfare 3, it dropped from No. 1 last month to No. 2 in December, with EA Sports FC 24 re-claiming the top spot, boosted by Holiday sales. The rest of the top 5 also saw significant boosts thanks to the Holiday, with Hogwarts Legacy, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Grand Theft Auto 5 rounding out the top of the chart.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is the only new release to crack the top ten, coming in at No. 8. Notable is the lack of Xbox exclusives, with Spider-Man 2 representing the PlayStation 5 joined by the Nintendo Switch exclusives Mario Kart 8: Deluxe and Nintendo Switch Sports.

That trend continued with console sales for the month, with the PlayStation 5 again claiming the top spot, despite a 19% drop in sales from November. Nintendo Switch was second with a gain of 39% compared to the previous month, while the Microsoft Xbox Series consoles had a smaller gain of 6%.

500,000 total consoles were sold during the month of December, up 2% from November and 7% from the previous December.

The largest area of improvement from last year came with accessories, a stunning 63% gain from November and 10% over 2022, representing 2.07 million add-on products. Sony dominated again, with sales of the DualShock 5 in white and midnight black coming in at the top 2 spots, with a surprise appearance by the PlayStation 4 DualShock coming in at #7.

All told, 2023 finished as a strong year for video game sales, coming in slightly above 2022 and setting up the industry for an equally strong 2024.