PS4 Gobbled Up Half of All Physical Game Sales in UK This Year

All these PS4 stats are insane. It's mad that, like the article says, more sites aren't reporting them. Can only assume that it's because the PS4 isn't a new console.

@ShogunRok I think its because the headlines aren't click bait worthy. It is either, will Xbox One be able to catch up or Nintendo Switch does better than anyone/we predicted. PS4 was and still is the best selling console just doesn't make it.

However, I think it is amazing that PS4 is going to surpass the PS3 and XB360 lifetime sales within the next year, if things keep going the way they are, at a time when people said the console market was dying on its bottom.

@Rudy_Manchego Yeah you're right, it's a lot easier to get attention with consoles that are fresh in the mind and their success is yet to be properly determined.

Still, it's a shame when you've got a four-year-old console doing this well.

Wow, and all that with Sony having "dropped the ball".

I can only imagine how well they would have done had they released the games that I, personally, like.

This year is easily the most I've spent on games. I've also got more digital this year too.

15 weeks on top for exclusives?

Here I thought exclusives don't sell consoles. It's all about multiplats on the most powerful system. /s

Would love to know worldwide stats. Wouldn't be surprised if it's somewhere in the 60-65% range.

But its only been a "good" year for Playstation

"...with more staggering (but underreported)..." YAWN, of course 99% of so-called Gaming sites just ignore any Amazing PlayStation sales and everything else Good News :-/ If this was Microsoft getting all these Amazing sales for the Xbox brand then we wouldn't hear the last of it Well done SONY anyway

Its an impressive figure but its not unsurprising considering the market share that PS4 has. If there are twice as many PS4 owners, you would expect twice as many games sold on that system - it stands to reason - assuming of course PS4 owners buy as many games as other console owners purchase - also of course that those owners buy the same percentage of Physical games over digital.

To clarify with an example - If Fifa, a game available on all platforms - sells to 25% each of the number of PS4, XB1 and Switch owners - the PS4 version should sell roughly double the amount of XB1 versions and 6-7x more than the Switch version globally because that's the difference in install base sizes - BUT the overall uptake is still 25% of each individual platform.

What this statistic shows though is that either XB1 isn't quite at 50% in terms of 'install' base in the UK OR that XB1 owners bought more Physical games per person overall. I assume the other 18.2% of Physical games sold were Switch, WiiU, PC and 3DS.

Maybe more sites aren't covering this because it stands to reason that the PS4 would have the largest percentage of games bought considering it also has the largest install base...

As for spending 15weeks at the top of the Chart, that can be down to timing of those releases. I wonder if Crash or H:ZD would have sold enough copies to beat Fifa or CoD. I bet H:ZD and Crash week 1 sales were eclipsed by both of these games. CoD and Fifa are already the biggest selling games of the year. If you release at the right time, it takes a LOT less sales to reach the top of the chart than it does around October/November time.

That's not to say its still a 'bad' thing or these games were 'poor' - not at all. H:ZD is still my GotY but it still wouldn't have been a number 1 game had it released later - assuming that the sales were the same week on week. It may only have taken 50k to reach the top when it released but by the time WW2 released, they would need more than 500k a week to be number 1 and 50k may only be good enough for 4th or lower.

As I said, its probably not news worthy because its 'expected' and only PS sites will pick up on it to gloat - despite the fact that it was obviously going to happen because of the much larger install base.

Impressive numbers, I wonder if Xbox will ever try to fight back after this.

Would have been more weeks at the top i feel if deep silver had managed to get their act together and provide sufficient stock to meet demand for persona 5.

Great news sony. And nice to read a positive story. It seems that other sites have become ridiculously critical of sony this year, whereas they seem very quick to praise microsoft despite the lack of exclusives; and their new darling - the switch (as we know, everything nintendo touches turns to gold). That is not to diss the competution. Heck i really want a switch at this point. But sony seem to get a lot of unecessary criticism. And i dont get it.

@Rob_230 they are up to criticism

Otherwise it’ll be blind fanboyism

Same w Nintendo & Microsoft or ofc any AAA dev/publisher & company...

@naruball was that sarcasm?

@dark_knightmare2

Sony has been dominating home console sales for years now. There's no drama or interest in the PS4's success anymore.

@Rob_230 "the switch (as we know, everything nintendo touches turns to gold)."

Man, that coma you were in lasted the entire length of the Wii U's lifespan, huh?

I'm out of train related puns.

PS4 is also just eating up people in SEA right now, Everyone has a PS4 here because it's so cheap compared to back when the PS3 released.

There are literally promotions everyweek for the PS4 here even in my country

For the gamers 😉

Why are they still queuing? Door's open guys, just go in.

We need to know the digital figures as well this is only showing half the picture.

UK is one of the biggest states in PlayStation Nation, our anthem is Greatness.
All hail the King. =P

@BAMozzy But that includes competition from;

Xbox1 family
Switch
Wiiu
3ds family
PC
Xbox 360
PS3

Its actually staggering.

@Rob_230 In all fairness both microsoft, nintendo and Blizzard have gone gangbusters with their marketing on various other sites, which leads onto increased articles on their games. Sony I feel have relaxed this year somewhat suffice the ridiculous amount of mario kart, overwatch and forza articles. Whilst theres a lack of articles on Playstation stuff. And for the record as good as those games are, they by no way warrant increased exposure on gaming sites compared to Yakuza zero, Horizon or Persona 5. But thats down to marketing. They dont necessarily pay for reviews but they seemingly pay for increased articles, positivity and mentions.

considering just PS4, XB1, Switch/Wii-U and 3DS - PS4's install base is about 1/3. doesn't say whether the software market % is based on revenue (i'd guess that 3DS games in general are cheaper?) or units sold though. the hardware difference between PS4 and XB1 is about 25%, so the 60% difference in software sales is somewhat surprising, though could be explainable by various factors - PS4 had much more software choice.. personally i only bought one multiplatform game this year (and only 2 last year) so if i had owned an XB1, it would have been a bookend 99% of the time. and perhaps the most engaged xbox gamers saved money on buying games to get the XB1x at launch - a £450 machine is the cost of 9+ new games.

@themcnoisy I bet PS3 and XB360 accounted for very little - PC too as most were bought digitally/ The fact is that all those platforms you mention account for LESS than 20% of ALL Physical sales combined. More people bought XB1 games than ALL of those (bar the XB1 of course). XB1 and PS4 combined accounted for 81.8% of all physical games sold. More XB1 games were sold than PC, WiiU, Switch, XB360, PS3 and 3DS (family) games combined

As I said, if there are double the amount of PS4 console owners than XB1, you would expect to sell double the amount of games. Considering also the fact that PS4 had a 'great' year for Exclusives and also had more games released Physically, 50.2% isn't unrealistic. If PS4 is outselling XB1 by 2:1 then you would expect at least 'double' the amount of games sold - more if there is more games (Exclusives) releasing.

All this indicates is that either the ratio between XB1 and PS4 isn't quite 2:1, PS4 owners buy more 'digitally' OR that XB1 owners bought on average more games per person over the year. It doesn't indicate anything more than that.

To reiterate a different way - if there was 4m PS4 owners in the UK and 2m XB1 owners - both groups buying the same amount of games per year physically - you would see double the amount of games sold on PS4. To use that 'Fifa' example - if 25% of both sets of owners bought Fifa physically - that would give PS4 1m sales compared to 500k on Xbox - instantly given Sony 'double' the amount of PS4 games bought. If that 'trend' continued with EVERY multi-platform game, Sony would end up with double the amount of games sold than XB1. If you then add in extra sales because of the 'extra' exclusives, then Sony should, assuming the ratio is 2:1 and the percentage of owners buying Physical is the same, have more than 'double' the amount of games sold on that platform.

Therefore the only conclusions that can be made from this is that either Sony don't have quite double the ownership in the UK, Digital is more popular on PS4 OR Xbox owners on average bought more games physically than PS4 owners. It maybe that the average Xbox gamer bought 10 games (physically) this year compared to 7 games on average for PS4 owners.

Like I said, if Sony had double the market share than XB1, you would expect to see double the amount of PS4 games sold - assuming that each gamer on either platform bought the same number of games physically over the year. The fact is, the stats show that whilst PS4 obviously had the highest percentage of all games sold, its not as big a margin as I expected. If Sony had 'double' the market share, you would expect that XB1 would equate to around 27.3% compared to PS4's 54.5% (a ratio of 2:1 assuming the other 18.2% remained unchanged). The 2:1 ratio would be if the PS4 owners out-number the XB1 owners by 2:1 and each owner bought the same number of games per year Physically.

I am not denying its 'impressive' to have such a lead but its hardly surprising considering we know how impressive the hardware sales have been.

It's a monster!

And the game lineup is monstrously good!

@BAMozzy - it's about 5m to 4m in terms of PS4/XB1 hardware ownership in the UK, it's nowhere near double. it's only double worldwide by virtue of it being about 60:1 in japan and 3:1 in mainland europe.

@ShogunRok plus Sony is only news-worthy when they're doing something wrong.

@BAMozzy Thanks for the lesson on what double means. I think we are tracting off different points of reasoning here though.

I thought you wrote that its unsurprising for Sony to hit 50.2% of all physical sales (I didnt read your initial comment properley). Although from my point of view its never been done before and is amazing considering the competition.

You were coming from the angle that Playstation having double the sales of xbox isnt surprising considering the install base. Which is also correct.

What you didnt think about from the article in your comment, is that last year Playstation didnt get anywhere near this level of market share. In 2016 it was arguably in a better position. And with over 50% of retail game sales its never been done before.

Well I'll be a new PS4 Slim owner soon, contributing to these stats in 2018. I've already purchased a few games ready for it, but there's still so much to get and coming out next year.

I've also just purchased a PS3 Slim and about 20 of its best games for £50 or so on eBay. My backlog has increased by about 10,000% in a matter of a week! I'm sorted until the mid 2020's anyway.

PlayStation definitely has the best lineup of exclusives. Whilst Nintendo's best will always be my favourite (Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Fire Emblem), Sony has nailed the quantity/quality ratio down to a fine art. I could literally only play exclusives on the PS4 and I'd still always have a back log.

amazing PS4/Pro really are great consoles!! really hope SONY use all the experience now & make PS5 the god of consoles