Since its September 6 release, Bethesda’s Starfield, the most recent game from the Skyrim creator, has risen to the top of the list of best-selling premium games in terms of dollar sales. According to Circana data, Mortal Kombat 1, EA Sports FC 24, and Madden NFL 24 from Warner Bros. Games were not surpassed by Starfield as the highest-grossing paid game last month. Starfield is currently the ninth best-selling premium game of the year, outpacing titles like Final Fantasy XVI from Square Enix and Elden Ring from Bandai Namco in terms of sales.
The company that controls Bethesda and Xbox, Microsoft, stated that the launch of Starfield greatly increased its revenue and increased the number of Xbox Game Pass users. Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said during the company’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday that the release of Starfield and an increase in Xbox Game Pass subscriptions were the main causes of the gaming division’s 9% revenue boost. Over 11 million individuals have played Starfield to date, with almost half of those hours being spent on PCs, according to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The game broke the record for the most Game Pass subscriptions added in a single day on launch day.
The Starfield team revealed on Twitter that, after just 24 hours of its debut, Starfield has amassed 6 million players, making it Bethesda’s biggest-ever game launch. In an interview with MinnMax this week, Bruce Nesmith—a former Bethesda game designer who contributed to the early development of Starfield and Skyrim—expressed his happiness with the response the game received from players. Because more original content was required, he said, developing a new IP like Starfield was more difficult than working on Skyrim or the Fallout series.