United Kingdom: the Switch grills the PS5 on the wire and ends up at the top of sales in 2021


As reported by the Games Industry site, Nintendo sold no less than half a million consoles in November and December in the United Kingdom, a final sprint that allows it to achieve its second best year after its record of 2020 (all like in France). Powered by the Black Friday Mario Kart 8 Deluxe bundle and the launch of the Switch OLED, this performance allows the machine to finish at the top of sales, even though the PS5 took control of this market last May. At least the suspense will have been maintained until the end, which is not the case in France where Nintendo flew over the debates from start to finish with 1.3 million Switches against 600,000 PS5s sold in 2021.

In the United Kingdom, the results for the year show 3.36 million consoles sold for 35.8 million games (download included) and 10.6 million accessories. In addition to the success of the Switch, the release of new consoles from Sony and Microsoft enabled console sales to increase by 14%, but neither the PS5 nor the Xbox Series will have been able to express their true potential as demand remains clearly greater than availability. Note that the Xbox Series S represents no less than 57% of the Xbox Series sold in 2021, Microsoft having simply distributed this model in larger quantities.

If console sales increased, game sales fell 16% last year with 35.8 million games sold in boxes and for download. Once again, however, it is necessary to compose without the digital sales of Nintendo which does not communicate the figures of its own games sold on the eShop. In addition, game sales are lower than those of 2020 (year of confinement) but well above the figures for 2019 (+ 38%). 20.5 million games were sold for download compared to 15.3 million games on the shelves.

As we already knew, FIFA 22 is the best seller of the year with 917,000 copies sold in stores and above all 1.3 million units sold in digital format. The game is up 10% from FIFA 2021. Call of Duty: Vanguard is the second biggest sale of the year but sales fell 36% compared to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold Warwhich in absolute terms does not necessarily reflect a decline in popularity since the success of the franchise now relies heavily on free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone.

Sign that few novelties have been able to make their way (games released in 2021 represent only 31.6% of sales), it is Grand Theft Auto V which completes the podium, without even being released on PS5 and Xbox Series and despite sales down 23%. Without making any noise, Red Dead Redemption 2the other big game from Rockstar, also had a good year by appearing in the top 10. But the surprise of the ranking goes to F1 2021 which ends just ahead far cry 6, no doubt in part thanks to the debates sparked by the controversial conclusion of the F1 season (proof of this is the explosion in sales of the game in December). Also note the endurance of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Moralesa true barometer of PS5 sales just like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is that of the Switch.

Finally, 10.6 million accessories were sold in 2021, which represents a drop of 6%. The best seller goes to the white DualSense controller and then to the black Xbox controller and the PULSE 3D wireless headset for the PS5. The most popular Switch accessory is the black Switch Pro controller, but the item is ranked only 14th.



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