Although Resident Evil 9 was released at the end of February, it was enough time for it to become the month’s best-seller.

Mat Piscatella, Circana’s managing director and gaming industry analyst, published the U.S. game sales charts, which break down monthly what Americans are buying and how much they’re spending. Unsurprisingly, Resident Evil Requiem topped the sales charts in February. However, sales of Capcom’s new survival horror title alone were not enough to prevent an overall decline in spending. Compared to Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil Requiem’s launch sales were 60% higher. With over 6 million copies sold, Requiem is clearly a huge success for Capcom.

Total consumer spending on games remained unchanged in February of this year compared to February 2025, thanks to spending on subscription services – Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, and Nintendo Switch Online. This is not surprising, as spending on subscriptions drove the increase in total spending in the United States in 2025. Platform owners generate significant revenue in this area, so if it were to weaken, it would put the Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft trio at risk. For now, however, this has prevented spending figures from plummeting in the United States, where spending rose by 27% compared to February 2025 – arguably due to price hikes – so combined spending for the past two years has remained largely unchanged thanks to the success of Resident Evil Requiem.

Given its success, Resident Evil Requiem is poised to be one of the best-selling games of 2026 in the United States. While it’s unlikely to remain the top-selling game for the entire year – especially after November because of Grand Theft Auto VI – its strong launch in 2025 put Monster Hunter Wilds among the top five best-selling games in the United States, and Requiem has fewer technical issues than Wilds. While it won’t remain in the top five for the rest of the year, it will likely remain among the 20 best-selling games of 2026 in the U.S. when RE9 finally releases, even if it doesn’t perform as well as Wilds.

Sometimes all a game needs is a good sale to make it back onto the charts. That’s exactly what happened in February with DOOM: The Dark Ages. Thanks to last month’s big sale, it jumped back into the top 10 best-selling PC games, rising from 92nd place. Similarly, Diablo II: Resurrected jumped from 195th place on the overall list to 13th place on the monthly sales chart for the month’s best-selling games. On the PC sales charts specifically, it jumped from 83rd to second place, though this is not solely due to the sale but also to the releases of Warlock and Reign of the Warlock last month.

Spending on hardware increased by 22% compared to the same period last year. While the PlayStation 5 was the month’s best-selling hardware, Nintendo Switch 2 sales prevented a decline in hardware spending, similar to what happened with subscription spending. In the ninth month of its lifecycle, the Switch 2 is outpacing its predecessor by 45% in terms of total sales to date.

Spending on games in the United States in February 2026 wasn’t exceptional, but it wasn’t poor either. It was an average month and will likely be followed by a much stronger March. We’ve already seen some major releases, including Slay the Spire 2, Crimson Desert, Marathon, Pokémon Pokopia, MLB The Show 26, WWE 2K26, and the PC port of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.

Source: WCCFTech, Bsky, Bsky, Bsky