PS5, skyrocketing sales in January in Europe. Xbox Series X|S and Switch in sharp decline

PlayStation 5 2023 seems to have started off on the right foot and the effects ofincreased console availability – announced by Sony both at the beginning of January and during the past few weeks with a dedicated media campaign – seems to find ample reflected in the sales datareportedly on Twitter from Christopher Dringat the head of the well-known portal GamesIndustry.biz.

The numbers shared by Dring do not go into detail on the units sold, but give us an insight into what happened in the European market during the month of JanuaryWhere Playstation 5 has registered a +202% on units sold compared to the same month last year. It is therefore more than triple the consoles, which allowed PS5 to position itself at the top of the January hardware ranking in Europe.

The figure is even more impressive when compared to other rival platforms. In the same reference period, in fact, Nintendo Switch has recorded an 11% dropgoing to position itself in second place, while Xbox Series X|S occupy the third position with a 32% drop.

The scenario painted by Dring’s data allows us to see several interesting aspects of the market, including the presence of a huge demand for PlayStation 5. In fact, as soon as availability increased, sales of the console skyrocketed, even net of being in the month immediately following the Christmas holidays and without any first-party title of great appeal arriving (last year there was Horizon Forbidden West coming out right around this time). This confirms that the shortage of stocks has heavily penalized PS5 over the past two years and the January data seems to be proof of this.

Also the Switch dataalthough it testifies to a decline, it is not entirely bad, since it must be placed in the context Right. Nintendo’s hybrid console is now reaching the end of its life cycle and in January 2022 it could count on the launch of Pokémon Legends: Arceus to further push console demand in the month following the holidays, so the decline recorded this year is from also interpret net ofabsence of a first party title as strong as Pokémon. Of course, on January 20 the expected arrived Fire Emblem Engagebut the power of the franchise is not comparable to that of the Game Freak series.

Different speech regarding Xbox Series X|S, given that the 32% drop reflects the negative period in which the Microsoft platform seems to have entered, after an overall positive generation start. January was an uninspiring month in terms of software launches that could push consoles – e the excellent Hi-Fi Rush came unannounced – however it was a similar scenario to the one faced by Sony, then such a sharp decline at the beginning of the consoles’ third year of life should not be underestimated.

Let’s also consider that the most interesting launch at the beginning of the year was Hogwarts Legacy, the title of Avalanche Software which arrived just in the last few days exclusively for the latest generation platforms and PC (it will arrive in April on the old gen) and which certainly also significantly boosted the sales of new hardware. It will be interesting to find out the sales data of the game by platformin order to understand if Xbox Series X and S have also benefited from this important assist or if the phenomenon has affected the Sony console more.