Ooh look, it’s more data to remind us that despite what the availability in stores and online would suggest, PS5s are, in fact, being sold, and in very high numbers. And again, despite all that, I’m still not one of the lucky ones who own one. Yes, I’m salty, but can you blame me? I don’t think so.
Anyway, sales numbers in Japan, courtesy of Famitsu, have shown that the PS5 had a really great year last year. To be precise, it sold 942,798 units during the course of 2021, which is pretty impressive when you consider both the stock shortages (which are still showing absolutely no signs of stopping) and the fact that Japan is very much Nintendo’s territory when it comes to sales.
A lot of people around the world are still struggling to get hold of PS5s, thanks to both stock issues and scalpers.
To put that alongside the numbers for the other consoles on the market, the Switch unsurprisingly topped the charts at 5.3 million units sold (up from 5.1 million in 2020), which might make the PS5’s efforts seem slightly measly in comparison. However, when you look at the figures for the Xbox Series X and S, it starts to look significantly chunkier.
Xbox consoles only sold 95k units in Japan throughout 2021, making them about 10 times less popular than the PS5. In actual fact, they even sold less than the PS4, which managed to pull off 103K sales. I almost feel a little bit bad.
The Xbox has historically never really managed to take off in the Japanese market, so these figures aren’t super surprising, but you can’t deny that they’re still pretty wild. Again, obviously the stock shortages will have an impact on sales, and the Switch is a lot easier to get hold of than the new-gen consoles. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in times to come when the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S become more readily available, although if the past is anything to go by, chances are that the popularity rankings will basically remain the same.
Featured Image Credit: Martin Katler via Unsplash, Billy Freeman via UnsplashTopics: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PlayStation, Xbox