Due to a whole host of factors, when the PlayStation 5 was first released in late 2020, it suffered from a great deal of stock shortages – putting a heavy hamper on the system’s sales. Finally, last month Sony claimed that 2023 would be the year when the PS5 no longer suffers from stock issues. It seems this is indeed the case, as January’s sales have shown Sony’s console up by over 200% year-on-year.
As reported by Christopher Dring of Gamesindustry.biz, “Across European markets in January, PS5 sales are up 202% compared with the year before”. Yes, 202% does mean that the console’s sales have more than tripled when compared to January of last year. Unsurprisingly of course, this meant that the PlayStation 5 took the top spot in terms of console sales for the month.
For comparison’s sake, the Nintendo Switch landed second place (seeing a drop of 11% compared to this time last year), though this makes some sense as the system is nearing its end-of-life.
Perhaps the more concerning stat pertained to the Xbox Series X and S, which saw a drop of 32% in sales compared to the same time last year. Of course, Microsoft no longer offers concrete global details on its console sales, and so this is the closest we will get to a comparison between systems.
When Sony said that more PS5s would be available this year, it seems as though they really meant it. It will be highly interesting to see how many units are sold by the end of the year.
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KitGuru says: Did you buy a PS5 in January? What about the other systems? How many consoles do you think Sony will sell in 2023? Let us know down below.