Data has come through today from Games Industry which has revealed that Sony’s PlayStation 5 console is now the fifth fastest selling console in the biggest gaming market in Europe, the United Kingdom. The Wii remains the console which reached the four million mark the quickest, with it doing so in just 102 weeks. The Nintendo Switch is at seventh taking 203 weeks to reach 4 million sales. It should be noted that the PlayStation 5 is the most expensive console to achieve the milestone. View the chart down below.
“The days of razors and razorblades when consoles sold at almost impulse-purchase price points, are over,” says GfK games boss Dorian Bloch. “Either from launch or by heavy price reductions over time — Wii, PS1, PS2 and Xbox 360 — all had low cumulative average selling prices by the time they reached 4m units.”
Number of weeks to reach 4m UK sales (GfK data)
| Position | Format | Weeks To 4m | Revenue | Average Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wii | 102 | £721m | £178 |
| 2 | PS2 | 114 | £817m | £204 |
| 3 | PS4 | 161 | £1.26bn | £311 |
| 4 | PS1 | 182 | £585m | £146 |
| 5 | PS5 | 192 | £1.846bn | £460 |
| 6 | Xbox 360 | 193 | £843m | £211 |
| 7 | Switch | 203 | £1.07bn | £267 |
| 8 | PS3 | 210 | £1.15bn | £288 |
| 9 | Xbox One | 211 | £1.22bn | £305 |
That’s it. I need a break from this site. I can’t deal with one more positive thing about the abomination known as the Wii.
I needed a chortle. Thanks for that buddy
Your breaks from this site are 15 minutes long
How is the PS5, a device with almost no exclusive titles and one of the rockiest debuts in gaming history selling faster than the Switch, a device so sought after that it was the number one item sold on Black Friday one year without having a sale attached???
Horses for courses right.
While I would say the Switch certainly is appealing, It feels like the PS has a more established fan base.
Wait, how?! The launch was a disaster, it has less than 20 exclusive titles as of this comment, and most of the games are on the PS4/Steam so there was never a reason to upgrade this time.
For me it was Day 1.
See the guy belows comment, there was def an element of fomo.
The PS5 system itself for me, felt like a really good upgrade from 4
Think about it, the scarcity of PS5’s created a fomo (fear of missing out) feeling within people to either seek to have one for themselves, or to resell, which I did both.
Or there’s people like me, who have bought many of their platforms in the past. I personally had a PS3, PS4, PSP, PS-Vita, and even the PS-Vita TV thing (waste of money btw). Point is there were also long time fans such as myself that were completely turned off this time around from its rocky start and having the ability to own almost every game via my PS4 or PC/Steam Deck.
I’m not the only one that feels this way, so I have a hard time accepting it sold faster than the Switch which is currently the 3rd best selling gaming device of all time. I also wouldn’t be surprised if it claimed the number 1 spot as it isn’t far away from it in terms of overall sales and it likely has another 10 or so months before the successor hits store shelves and even then it’ll probably be sold for another year or so until they run out of stock.
Just curious as all I remember was the lack of hardware at launch. What was rocky ?
The catastrophic PS5 pre-order situation kicks things off. Stores accepting pre-orders had a designated start date and for some silly reason they all jumped the gun. They began pre-order sales a day early blindsiding people like myself that expected it to start on time the following day, meaning those that weren’t in the right place at the right time didn’t secure a spot on the waitlist.
Then following the first disaster was the semiconductor shortage. This led to the struggle you’re referring to where the first two years of the new hardware not being readily available to the general public. The PS5 was so scarce people either had to pay ridiculous prices to scalpers or wait patiently for the issue to be resolved.
This continued the trend of problems when Sony realized not enough of their audience would be able to play games on the new hardware. So to salvage this issue they made these games playable on PS4 and Steam. In this way fans could still play most of their newer games while the shortage situation sorted itself out. This however, as good intentioned as it was, led to the PS5 not having many games exclusive to its hardware as I think less than 10 games are actually only playable on the PS5 itself. So if you still have a PS4 or own a PC/Steam Deck, or are like me and have all three, the PS5 becomes obsolete.
To conclude this list of issues along the PS5’s rocky start, I will say none of these issues were Sony’s fault as it was a matter of others screwing up and a sad case of releasing hardware at a bad time. I will probably continue to buy PlayStation hardware in the future after the PS5 is laid down to rest. But that still raises the question of how this device is outpacing the Switch in sales when the Switch was strong right out of the gate with the hype and games to back it up throughout its entire life.
As i mentioned at the beginning. I feel like Sony has (or had) a more established fanbase. The scalping issues meant that people were paying up to £2000 for a console and people were actually buying them.
But you said it man. Not Sonys fault.
Ps5 number one without games, ironically the wii u had more and better gemes.
Kind of shows how pointless this metric is outside of measuring initial hype.
I’m actually surprised it outsold Switch it seemed like at the time of launch Switch was cheaper and you could actually find it in stores.