Whilst the pandemic and supply chain shortages constrained sales of game consoles for at least two years, sales have seen a remarkable jump in the year since the shortages ended, according to new stats from leading consumer behavioural analytics film Circana (formally The NPD Group and IRI).
As reported by Games Industry.Biz, the stats indicate sales of the PlayStation 5 are charting 5% above PlayStation 4 and 87% ahead of PlayStation 3 at the same points in their lifecycle, even with the severe shortages of PS5 consoles not ending until last July.
The news isn’t so rosy for the Xbox Series X|S, which trails the Xbox One by 10% though leads the Xbox 360 by 6% at the same points in their lifecycle. The outlet adds that they expect PlayStation 5 to remain the hardware market sales leader into at least 2025.
The biggest news of the survey comes from the Nintendo Switch. They indicate thanks to releases like “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,” sales in 2023 are strong enough that US lifetime sales of Switch hardware have finally surpassed those of Wii in that market during July 2023.
They also indicate that Switch lifetime sales now trail Xbox 360 by less than one million units and PlayStation 2 by fewer than five million. Globally the PS2 remains the best-selling game console of all time with 155 million, but Switch isn’t far behind at 129.5 million.
The survey also says the portable PC sector could become a significant “hardware gaming marketplace” and is “one of the more exciting growth areas in video games” thanks to the success of both the Steam Deck and ASUS ROG Ally.
Source: Games Industry.Biz
