Black Friday has come and gone and there were plenty of tempting bargains to be had at various retailers. There can only be one winner of Black Friday and this year that went to Sony’s PlayStation 5 console in the largest games market in Europe, the UK, which saw plenty of discounts on the base and Pro models taking 62% of the market. The Nintendo Switch 2 didn’t fare too badly claiming 23% of sales and the Xbox Series X|S acquired 10% and finally the original Switch took 5% of sales during Black Friday 25.. The big winners on the game front were both Hogwarts Legacy and EA Sports FC 26.
In the UK, sales of consoles were better this year than during Black Friday 2024, with revenue up 14%, and unit sales up 7%. Nintendo Switch 2 did ok, the data firm says, but it was PS5 that was the biggest driver.
In fact, PS5 was the only console to do better this Black Friday than the previous one, with unit sales up 16% over the year before. PS5 had a 62% share of the console market during the week.
Time for the hate crowd to cheer this without mentioning the context that the UK has always been a relatively poor region for Nintendo. I mean, it’s not great, but it’s not as bad as I’m sure it’ll be presented.
Who say 2x Xbox sales is bad ?
Well at least here the PS5 was on sale for 349€… Which i considered a great price for the machine. SONY took the aggressive approach for Black Friday… I wonder how much they actually loss per system selling it at that price
I’m guessing there were like 3 Xbox’s that were sold in the UK? 🤣
I honestly feel bad for Xbox owners in any country cuz nobody, especially Japan, nobody likes Xbox and it’s not because the console is bad just that Microsoft made poor decisions and poor marketing plus it feels like they are giving up.
I was an Xbox fan since the 00s and Microsoft has just killed the mood. I remember for the first couple of years of the Series X it felt like they had regained traction, then they kept changing course and and made the console feel like a billboard.
Just sold my Series X in July and just don’t want to buy anything from Microsoft anymore. They ruined Windows too.
Interesting to see how the Black Friday console sales played out in the UK this year. It’s not surprising that the PS5 dominated — with heavy discounts on both the base model and the Pro, it was basically the perfect time for anyone who’d been waiting to jump in. Grabbing 62% of the market and even selling 16% more than last year really shows how strong its momentum still is.
The Switch 2 did fairly well with 23%, especially considering it’s still a relatively new system and Nintendo usually doesn’t discount as aggressively as Sony. Meanwhile, the Xbox Series X|S sitting at 10% continues Microsoft’s downward trend in the UK over the last couple of years.
It’s also notable that overall console sales were up — revenue up 14% and units up 7% compared to Black Friday 2024. Definitely a much stronger year for hardware.
As for games, Hogwarts Legacy and EA Sports FC 26 taking the top spots makes perfect sense; both are huge titles that consistently perform well during sales events.
Since everything is a XBOX isn’t Microsoft the true Winner?
You can tell the market is shifting towards Sony and Nintendo now a days by these numbers.
People are more likely to buy a Switch 2 or a PS5/PS5 Pro than any of the Xbox Series consoles, which is sad but Microsoft has sadly been killing off their own brand for years, and with the next Xbox being a Gaming PC with a customised Windows Operating System selling for over $1,200, yeah I can see Nintendo and Sony just doing fine whilst Microsoft will probably just use the Xbox Brand as a gaming division rather than a Hardware Division.
I will say, Nintendo cracking around 23% of Black Friday Sales is still very good, and honestly I’m glad I bought mines at launch. The more people that are on Switch 2, the more games will hopefully get, especially for that new Carmegadon game that I’m surprised you guys haven’t mentioned yet