PS5 sales rose 22% in the US, but Circana points to Wolverine rather than a GTA 6 surge

The increase is real. Attributing all of it to GTA 6 is another matter: new detail from Circana's Mat Piscatella points to a sharper sales lift around Wolverine, while leaving room for anticipation of other games.

Daylight view of Vice City hotels, basketball courts, palm trees and traffic in an official GTA VI screenshot.

OFFICIAL SCREENSHOT

Rockstar Games · Image source ↗
Vice City 03, published by Rockstar Games. Promotional illustration of GTA VI, not evidence of console sales or a measured PS5 performance test.

The figures behind the debate

With GTA 6 approaching, a strong month for PlayStation can easily become a story about Rockstar. September's US hardware figures need a more specific explanation. In his October 22 market update, Circana analyst Mat Piscatella reported that PS5 unit sales increased 22% compared with September 2025. On October 26, he supplied more detail about when those purchases occurred. His conclusion is not that GTA 6 has no influence. It is that the available pattern points primarily to Marvel's Wolverine as the immediate driver, rather than a sustained acceleration in PS5 demand ahead of November.

First, what does the 22% measure?

The figure concerns consoles sold in the United States during September, compared with the same month a year earlier. It is not a worldwide total, an increase over August or a measure of GTA 6 preorders. Circana also reported a 43% year-on-year rise in PS5 hardware dollar sales. That is a different metric. Spending can move faster than unit sales when the average amount paid changes, whether through prices or the mix of products purchased. A 43% increase in revenue does not mean 43% more consoles reached buyers. The gap is especially relevant when headlines compress a market report into a single percentage. Before debating what drove growth, readers need to know which growth is being described.

Why Piscatella singles out Wolverine

Speaking to IGN in an article syndicated by Yahoo, Piscatella identified Wolverine as the primary driver of the PS5 hardware increase, while saying NBA 2K27 and GTA VI likely helped. That is an attribution from an analyst working with the sales data, not a survey showing that every buyer gave the same reason. His October 26 follow-up is useful because it addresses timing. He described a smaller rise in the week ending September 5 and a larger one in the week ending September 19, with a relatively stable weekly rate outside those movements over the period shown. In a second message, he distinguished being receptive to buying a console because of upcoming games from actually making the purchase around Wolverine's arrival. He also said he did not yet see evidence of baseline PS5 demand ramping up towards November.

GTA 6 can matter without explaining the whole increase

There is no contradiction in a player wanting a PS5 for GTA 6 and choosing an earlier purchase because another game is available. One title can help justify owning the hardware; another can determine the week the money is spent. That is an illustrative buying scenario, not a claim that Circana measured how many customers followed it. This is why the weekly pattern is more informative than simply putting a monthly increase next to GTA 6's release date. It helps locate the change in purchasing activity. It still cannot assign an exact share of every sale to a single game. It would therefore be just as misleading to turn Piscatella's explanation into a declaration that GTA 6 contributed nothing. His comments explicitly leave room for other influences. What they challenge is the idea that the September figures already demonstrate a broad, sustained pre-launch rush driven principally by Rockstar.

The next reports will test a different question

For GTA 6, the relevant question now is whether later data shows demand building beyond September's release-related peaks. That requires subsequent market reports, not extrapolation from one strong month. September's US results cannot settle November's sales, global demand or which console players will ultimately choose. Our dossier on GTA 6's influence over the industry's release calendar explores how several games can compete for the same attention and budget. The hardware story offers a practical reminder: even with Rockstar's next release on the horizon, other launches still have measurable commercial weight. Source note: the figures and October 26 clarifications were checked against Piscatella's original public Bluesky posts. His comments to IGN were read in Yahoo's syndicated version. GTA6 Watch has not accessed Circana's underlying commercial dataset or independently estimated the contribution of individual games.