Welcome to What’s Selling, our weekly look at the sales charts. Every number comes from the official trackers: GfK (UK), SELL (France), SwissCharts (Switzerland), Famitsu (Japan) and Circana (US), plus a snapshot of Steam’s own player counts. Release weeks differ by region, so each chart below lists its week.
The short story: EA Sports FC 27 won’t give up the top spot in Europe. Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is the launch of the month. And three big new releases all went straight into the UK top five.
This week at a glance
| Region (tracker, week) | No. 1 | Biggest new entry |
|---|---|---|
| UK (GfK, week ending Oct 10) | EA Sports FC 27 | Star Wars: Galactic Racer (No. 2) |
| France (SELL, week 40) | EA Sports FC 27 | Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve (No. 2) |
| Switzerland (SwissCharts, week 40) | EA Sports FC 27 | Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve (No. 2) |
| Japan (Famitsu, week ending Oct 4) | Ace Combat 8 (PS5), 63,013 copies | Ace Combat 8 (New) |
| US (Circana, August) | NBA 2K27 | NBA 2K27 |
UK: three new games in the top five
FC 27 held No. 1 on the UK physical chart for the week ending October 10, according to GfK. Behind it, the week’s new releases piled in. Star Wars: Galactic Racer debuted at No. 2, Gears of War: E-Day at No. 3, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival at No. 4 and Kingdom Hearts Collection [I~III] at No. 5. Seven new games entered the top 40 in total, including Halloween: The Game at No. 9.
Gears is the interesting one. It’s on Game Pass from day one, and we’ve already looked at what its sales numbers say about Game Pass. Even so, it still sold enough boxed copies to land No. 3. Older hits slid down the chart: Mario Kart World fell to 6th, Marvel’s Wolverine to 7th and Pokémon Pokopia to 8th.
France and Switzerland: Ace Combat 8 at No. 2
In France, FC 27 stayed No. 1 for week 40, according to SELL. Ace Combat 8 debuted at No. 2, Marvel’s Wolverine held 3rd, Silent Hill: Townfall dropped to 4th and Minecraft Dungeons II arrived at 5th.
Switzerland’s SwissCharts top three for the same week were nearly identical: FC 27, then Ace Combat 8 (new), then Minecraft. Minecraft Dungeons II debuted at No. 9.
Japan: Ace Combat 8 wins, Switch 2 dominates hardware
Famitsu’s latest chart covers the week ending October 4, and the next one lands later this week. That week, Ace Combat 8 (PS5) debuted at No. 1 with 63,013 physical copies. That’s more than three times the No. 2 game, Dynasty Warriors 3: Complete Edition Remastered (PS5), which sold 18,724. Rhythm Heaven Groove was 3rd with 15,894, bringing its Japanese total to 1,065,816 copies.
The hardware gap is stark. Switch 2 sold 26,200 units that week, bringing it to 6,386,553 in Japan. The whole PS5 family sold 12,768, and Xbox Series X|S sold 612.
Ace Combat 8 is also strong worldwide. Bandai Namco says it has topped one million copies, the fastest any game in the series has got there.
US: August was the weakest in over a decade
Circana’s latest US report covers August, which we covered in detail. NBA 2K27 was the best-selling game. Switch 2 was the top console by both units and dollars, and it’s also No. 1 for the year so far. Only 559,000 consoles sold in the US in August, the lowest August since 2013, while the average price paid for a console hit a record $541. Total US spending on games fell 9% year on year, to $4.26 billion.
Who’s playing on Steam right now
Retail charts only count boxed copies. Steam’s player counts show who’s actually playing. Here are the week’s big new releases, from Steam’s official player API, checked by Pixel Herald on Monday afternoon (US Eastern):
| Game | Players on Steam (Mon, Oct 12) | Steam reviews |
|---|---|---|
| Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve | 15,048 | — |
| Gears of War: E-Day | 13,278 | Mostly Positive |
| Star Wars: Galactic Racer | 11,731 | Very Positive |
These are Monday-afternoon numbers, well below weekend peaks. For comparison, Gears of War: E-Day peaked at 31,517 players at launch. Live numbers for the biggest games are on our player counts page.
Our read: FC 27 is doing what EA’s football game always does in the autumn. It has topped all three European charts and will probably keep No. 1 until Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 arrives on October 23. The bigger story is Ace Combat 8. It topped Japan, took No. 2 in France and Switzerland and passed a million copies in about a week, so it’s a genuine hit, not a niche one. Gears of War: E-Day landing at No. 3 in the UK while also being on Game Pass shows there’s still a boxed audience for Xbox’s big games. Star Wars: Galactic Racer is the surprise: a brand-new kind of Star Wars racer, debuting at No. 2 with Very Positive Steam reviews.
Next week: Japan’s Famitsu chart for the week ending October 11, the first full week for Galactic Racer and Gears everywhere, and whether anything can knock FC 27 off the top in Europe.
Edited by Kerwin Stewart, Editor-in-Chief · How we report
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