Sony is dominating in Europe, as the PlayStation 5 was January’s best-selling console after a staggering 202% rise in sales from January 2022. The figures were shared by GamesIndustry.biz head Christopher Dring over on Twitter, where he confirmed the console sales of the PS5 had tripled. While the PS5 ruled the continent at the start of the year, the Nintendo Switch fell to second place with an 11% drop. In third place was the Xbox Series X/S, suffering from a 32% fall in monthly year-on-year sales.
The PS5 had floundered in Europe throughout 2021 and parts of 2022. Supply shortages fell far below demand for the system, leading to a whole lot of scalping pulling all systems from store shelves. The supply issues seem to be over however, as Sony begins a new marketing campaign of the system in celebration of its new availability. The surging sales in Europe suggests that a lot of gamers were just waiting for the supply to meet their demand before making the leap to the new generation of consoles.
The last few months have had a couple of big releases for Sony. God of War Ragnarök was PlayStation’s big first-party holiday release, available on both PS4 and PS5. Hogwarts Legacy may have only released just a few days ago, but it’s possible that some gamers were buying the PS5 in anticipation of the game. Sony holds marketing rights for Hogwarts Legacy and were heavily promoting hype for the game as a PS5 title, a move which has seemingly paid off, as 82% of Hogwarts Legacy sales in the UK were on the PS5.
Have you picked up a PlayStation 5 yet? How do you think the rest of this console generation will play out? Be sure to let us know in the comments below, and as always, keep your eyes on GameLuster for more breaking gaming news.
