While this autumn has been absolutely rammed with new games, it seems like the slate of additional releases hasn't exactly been beneficial in regard to sales - at least when talking about the month of September in Europe.
Gamesindustry.biz reports that game sales throughout Europe were down by 16% this September when compared to September 2022. Why? Strangely enough it's because last September was actually a five-week long month, which meant that there was additional time for game sales to be counted during the period. It's noted that if you look solely at an equal four-week period for both months, sales this year are only down 1%.
Looking at individual games, unsurprisingly EA Sports FC 24 was both the best-selling game in September 2023 in the UK and all major European markets, but did post sales that were 10% lower than what FIFA 23 achieved last year. NBA 2K24 was the third-biggest game of the month and also posted sales that were down 17% on NBA 2K23, but The Crew Motorfest (the month's fourth biggest game) managed to outperform 2018's The Crew 2 by 6.5%. Mortal Kombat 1 (the fifth biggest game) fell behind 2019's Mortal Kombat 11 by a mega 39%.
The report notes that Starfield was the second biggest launch of the month and that the game, while having a strong launch, fell behind Forza Horizon 5 by 13% - although there is no way of knowing how Game Pass affects these numbers.