140,000 Units Topped the US Chart — and Analysts Still Called Starfield's PS5 Debut Soft
Starfield's PS5 debut was branded a disappointment by analysts — and it still claimed the top spot on the US weekly sales chart.
95% of Starfield’s full-price US sales in the week ending April 11 came from PS5 — the platform the game had literally just launched on four days earlier. That single number tells you almost everything you need to know about what kind of launch this was.
Bethesda’s space RPG finally arrived on PS5 on April 7th, 2026, more than two years after its original Xbox and PC debut. The conversation around the launch split fast: analysts were cool on the raw numbers, while the sales charts told a different story entirely.
Per Circana’s US weekly chart for the week ending April 11, Starfield ranked #1 — ahead of every multi-platform release on the board. That’s the headline the game’s supporters led with. Here’s the asterisk: Alinea Analytics pegged worldwide first-week PS5 sales at just 140,000 units. By most blockbuster-game standards, that figure is modest. The fact that 140,000 units was sufficient to claim the top US weekly spot says less about Starfield’s momentum and more about how quiet the competition was that week. Topping a soft chart is still topping the chart, but context earns its keep here.
The 95% PS5 share of full-price US sales is the more interesting data point. It confirms that Xbox and PC owners who wanted Starfield largely got it years ago — the PS5 port is pulling an almost entirely new audience. Whether that audience sticks around, buys the DLC, or tells their friends is the question 140,000 units can’t answer yet.
So what does
