Fuelled by some aggressive marketing and tempting price promotions, PS5 accounted for almost half of all consoles sold in the UK during November. The system – which was massively supply constrained during previous holidays – improved a whopping 126 per cent year-on-year and 149 per cent month-on-month, driving overall hardware sales up 32 per cent compared to 2022.
In total, approximately 486,000 consoles were sold, meaning the PS5 was likely above 200,000 units for the month. To be fair, though, it was a good period for all platform manufacturers, with Xbox Series X|S up four per cent year-over-year and Nintendo Switch only down 19 per cent compared to a year ago. The latter had a new Pokémon game last November, and is obviously nearing the end of its lifecycle now.
In other related news, Sony’s Remote Play streaming platform PS Portal was the fifth best-selling accessory in November, and completely sold out at retail. It’ll be interesting to see how strongly the device rebounds once Sony is able to replenish stock.
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 34
Good to see both next gen consoles doing well, and I am really looking forward to next Switch
@Sakai If the ps5 literally doing 3 times better than Xbox series x/s can you really say the Xbox is doing well.
Only half in the UK is actually not that impressive. PS5 was basically sold out during Black Friday and you could only pre-order the new model which released the week after, and basically at RRP or maybe £20 off if lucky.
@Jay767 yes, the pushsquare article and the source article from gamesindustry both mention this
@Jay767
Success means different things to different people.
Xbox are very much the plucky underdog so a 4% increase is huge for that little company.
@Atreus97 Xbox isn’t an underdog Microsoft is Xbox parent company which is like worth a round 2 trillion dollars. Microsoft literally just bought two big publishers recently that’s not an underdog move.
@Sakai Xbox is down around 20% year on year for the full year and needed a massive holiday period to get back to even, a 4% increase isn’t really going to cut it.
Selling less this year than last year is absolutely not a good year for them.
@ChrisDeku exactly. I’m not trying to hate on Xbox I want it to do well myself but it’s not at the moment.
@ChrisDeku The article is discussing Novembers sales, which have been reported everywhere as good, that is what I was commenting on.
An increase of 231% month on month is hardly bad, its good to see all the consoles doing well at the moment
@ChrisDeku I'd say it's actually even more impressive that it sold so well under those circumstances. If Sony hadn't let the stock of the old model run dry and it sell out with the new model not releasing until the following period then you'd have to imagine it would have sold even better.
Unfortunately, Sony is not taking advantage of the PS5 hype and has had some missteps this generation. We have not had a single announcement from the likes of Naughty Dog or Sucker punch this gen. During the ps3 era, they would have released at least two titles each. Next year, there is not one single major game from Sony's first party studios either. Actually, I wish there was some competition from Microsoft. I think Sony is beginning to feel cocky and make wrong moves one after another.
Interesting picture in the title! Should it indicate that the PS5 console is still heavily subsidized to gain market share?
What's 4% of nothing
@FantasyExplor3r88 ‘Next year, there is not one single major game from Sony's first party studios either’
Any sources? Not saying you’re wrong. But Sony might be have listened to fans and not release any hype too early.
@FantasyExplor3r88 It's almost as if games take significantly longer to make than they did during the PS3 generation. I'd be amazed if Sony don't have games next year.
Regardless have you really had a shortage of games to play?
@PSme They stated they wanted to shorten the time between announcement and release, which always meant we were going to have a quiet spell for a while as we caught up. In theory that should only happen once and then we should see a similar cadence to before, but with games releasing sooner, which is better imho.
It is a bit frustrating in the here and now, but it's not like there is a shortage of games to play in 2023 or early 2024. Exclusives aren't everything.
Sony are the kings of marketing strategy and also have made some good moves on the back of the PS4 momentum and good luck to them and well done.
To me do they deserve it just considering this new generation. Yes at the start of the generation 3 years ago for sure, but not so much as you move along into year 2 to 3. They not been to consumer friendly and have dried up a little.
But the brand and PS4 era really have done the trick for them.
@themightyant totally in agreement with ya👍🏻. I have massive backlog so I can wait but some people are impatient 🙄
@FantasyExplor3r88 good post. You are correct.
Microsoft are making Sony look good. Also Sony are benefiting from winning one of the most important generations in history, where everyone committed to a digital ecosystem and digital back catalogue. They’ve been riding off the back of that with the PS5.
If you take Sony’s performance in isolation, they’ve been fumbling the ball and are lucky their opponents are weak and the circumstances in their favour.
Furthermore Sony have proven time and time again, that when placed in a position of power, they are absolutely not consumer friendly or benevolent.
Sony need to up their game, and whilst I can’t see a way back for Microsoft now that most gamers are locked into one ecosystem, we desperately need them holding Sony’s feet to the fire.
@Atreus97
Ah yes, the trillion-dollar plucky underdog that can spend more money than its ever made buying up publishers.
Removed - trolling/baiting
@CielloArc It's almost like the first two things you said are subjective things most people don't agree with.
@FantasyExplor3r88 PlayStation has three SIE published titles coming out in the first few months of the year:
You could argue that these games are not developed by first party studios, but neither was og Demon's Souls.
Returnal, the first Marvel's Spider-Man and almost every Ratchet and Clank title when they were first released were developed by then third party devs too.
@ValkyriaProfile they probably underestimated demand due to less than great preorder numbers.
Belatedly met demand means PS5 should continue impressive sales numbers for the visible future, and by then the console library will only get meatier as well.
@Sakai "good to see both next gen consoles doing so well" lists two current gen consoles🤔😅 We're at least a year away from the new generation.
PS5 "improved a whopping 126 per cent year-on-year"
"It was a good period for all platform manufacturers with Xbox Series X|S up four per cent year-over-year."
That's some low-key cussing! 😆
Ps5 is on a roll 👏
Why do I feel like I saw this article multiple times now within the last month?
@ChrisDeku they had a 231% increase in November
@Toot1st that’s the increase from October, it’s 4% increase vs.November last year.
The increase from October is basically meaningless as one is a normal month and the other is a major shopping event.
@ChrisDeku Xbox is a lot stronger in the UK and Germany than the rest of Europe. It's why those figures from a week or so ago seemed slightly unfair by not including those markets.
@SgtTruth Agreed. The PS4/Xbox One generation was THE key generation to win from a 'forever loyalty' perspective. People who only play on one machine per gen aren't going to give up their paid for digital libraries either way for a few exclusives.
Sony realised this far quicker than Microsoft and the domino effect of that has kept them flying since 2013/14/15.
It's crazy to think how differently the console market could be now if Xbox One was announced without Kinect, DRM and with the same £399 price as PS4.
@__jamiie yup, in the past each new generation was a complete "reset".
If you had a Megadrive/Genesis or SNES, there was no systemic "friction" that would prevent you switching to an N64 or Saturn.
I think the last generation where that was the case, and will ever be the case, was the 360/PS3.
Mind you it had probably started a little bit then, with the online services, friends lists and trophies/achievements.
But yes PS4/XO was really the defining moment. As demonstrated by all the 360 owners who were able to switch ecosystem to PS4 with little pain, but for whom it would be very painful to go back now.
We now have an IOS/Android balkanised system.
The only solution to improve competition in the market would be an agreement between manufacturers to ensure cross-play on multiplayer games, easy migration of friends lists/achievements, and even more impossible - game licence transfers.
I just can't see that happening.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) for all gamers, I can see a hardware-less future arriving very, very soon. We'll all be buying just a set top, PC based box with a huge HDD/SSD to allow downloads.
Any games we "buy" will be tied to the individual publisher's app or streamed. ☹️
Tap here to load 34 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...