Halo Infinite is Charting Above Destiny 2 in Xbox’s Most Played Charts in the US

The former NPD Group (now named “Circana”) has released its full North American sales data for November, typically the biggest gaming month of the year, and surprisingly, the results weren’t that great. Players spent $5.9 billion on games, additional content, and hardware in November, a 9 percent year-on-year decrease. This was largely driven by a 24 percent drop in hardware spending, with all consoles being down double digits year-on-year. The PlayStation 5 was the #1 console, followed by the Xbox Series X/S, with the Switch really dropping off this season. It seems like inflation, and rumors that a new Switch is right around the corner, likely impacted hardware sales this year.

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Along with video game sales, Circana also revealed hardware sales for November 2023. Executive director and analyst Mat Piscatella revealed that the PS5 topped the charts in units and dollar sales, with the Xbox Series X/S behind it. While Sony’s console is still ahead in both metrics year-to-date, the Nintendo Switch is in second place.

Despite overwhelming criticism against its campaign length, not to mention reports of rushed development, Sledgehammer’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 topped US sales charts for November 2023, per Circana. Not only is it the fifth year that a Call of Duty title has topped US charts in November, but analyst Mat Piscatella also revealed that it’s now the second best-selling game of 2023 year-to-date.

Temu, the Chinese e-commerce company whose app is now attracting longer engagement times than Amazon, is Apple’s most downloaded free app in the U.S. for 2023. The Cupertino-based tech giant today released an App Store feature that showcases the top iPhone apps of the year, free and paid, as measured by app installs — its proxy for overall popularity. This year, apps from Chinese-based companies have taken over spots previously held by U.S. tech giants like Meta and Google, as CapCut and TikTok, which hail from Beijing-based ByteDance, came in at No. 3 and No. 5, respectively.

Starting from tomorrow through January 5, 2024, we’re celebrating the holiday season with a month full of activities for our PlayStation community. As part of the PlayStation Plus Season of Play, PlayStation Plus members can redeem free avatars for PS5 and PS4 consoles, join eSports tournaments, earn points on PlayStation Stars and enter a competition for your chance to win amazing prizes. Activities for those who are not PlayStation Plus members are available as well.

Hurry up and get your holiday viewing out of the way this year because the presents are arriving early. On Dec. 22, Mubi, the highly curated, cinema-forward streaming service, is unleashing a collection of films celebrating the high-impact fight films of Shaw Brothers Studio. Founded in 1958, the Chinese studio became synonymous with martial arts movies, with classics ranging from straight wushu fight dramas to more fantastical wuxia odysseys.

Another weekend means another batch of streaming recommendations, and there's plenty of variety to choose from this week. Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, and Mahershala Ali star in new Netflix thriller Leave the World Behind, while Todd Haynes' May December, which is already generating Oscar buzz for actor Charles Melton, has made its way to the UK via Sky Cinema. If you're in the mood for something a little more festive and lighthearted, try animated movie Merry Little Batman or Christmas rom-com Your Christmas or Mine 2, both on Prime Video.

Those with an active Game Pass Ultimate subscription can now purchase the Deluxe Edition of Immortals of Aveum for only $7.99.

The Day Before, the open-world MMO zombie game that’s been at the top of Steam’s wishlist charts since developer Fntastic dropped a splashy reveal trailer two years ago, is finally out. But players of The Day Before say the game that launched in early access Thursday isn’t the game they were promised, and are flooding Steam with thousands of negative reviews.

English Wikipedia raked in more than 84 billion views this year, according to numbers released Tuesday by the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit behind the free, publicly edited online encyclopedia. And the most popular article was about ChatGPT (yes, the AI chatbot that's seemingly everywhere today).

Starting from tomorrow through January 5, 2024, we’re celebrating the holiday season with a month full of activities for our PlayStation community. As part of the PlayStation Plus Season of Play, PlayStation Plus members can redeem free avatars for PS5 and PS4 consoles, join eSports tournaments, earn points on PlayStation Stars, save on PlayStation Gear merchandise, and enter a competition for your chance to win amazing prizes. Activities for those who are not PlayStation Plus members are available as well.