Xbox Series Consoles Outsold PS5 Last Month In The UK, But Not Nintendo Switch

Yeah, PS5 stock levels were awful in April. You can tell when PS5 gets stock because Miles Morales is high up in the charts but it hasn't been in the top 10 since late March.

The Switch isn’t all that great to be honest. Me and my partner bought one for Animal Crossing NH, and Breath of The Wild. The console itself is not too bad, but I personally thought it wasn’t all that great as everyone makes them out to be. Games are horribly expensive, and most are just ports and copies you can get on other platforms (third party ones like Skyrim or Rocket League) for way cheaper. I think if Nintendo had a system like Game Pass I probably would of kept mine. But I’m not paying over £60 for the same Mario games that are just slightly different.

@Grumblevolcano That’s the only thing I miss about PlayStation, I absolutely was in love with the Spider-Man game. They poured their heart and soul into making that game.

Well if PS5 keeps getting a low stock level everywhere while the Series X/S receive a higher stock level then potential PS5 buyers might just go for an Xbox instead. Game Pass is already enough to make Xbox a more compelling alternative and if PS5 keeps being sold out then Microsoft might just end up receiving a good share of Sony's customers, at least in the beginning that is.

@notleks_ I'd counter your opinion with thinking BOTW was one of the best games last gen and still won't find anything as 'fun' as mario kart but I guess that's the point of opinions! We all have one and they're not always the same.
Don't see the draw with Animal Crossing myself but my daughter has played the life out of that game and it cost £35. Certainly the most value for money game in our household!!

Rumour is there's a flood of PS5s coming this month in UK so wait for next month's 'PS5 top seller article' and MM back in the top 10 until the flip flop back to Series X/S following that!

It's all going on stock levels right now.
PS5 and Series X sell out immediately when restocked. Scalpers are still having a field day with those.
Series S seems to be in stock for longer periods, probably because scalpers don't touch those now.
I think we'll see this flip flop in sales for the rest of the year now as I doubt either console will be able to sort stock levels out to outstrip demand.

@StonyKL I did enjoy BOTW, but I got it shortly before I went back to work, and I didn’t really have time to continue it cos it’s such a big game. I still get nightmares of roaming around in fields and suddenly the piano plays and you see the dreaded red dot, haha!

But yeah, I did like the Switch as a console, it’s cool. Just I couldn’t really find anything worth playing that wasn’t expensive. Mario Kart 8 was fun for a few minutes, but does get repetitive after a few races. If there’s one Mario game I’d love to play again, it’s Mario Party 4.

I really don't see the appeal of the switch...i was going to get one...untill I did abit of research ..there aren't even that many games and they cost alot

Nintendo have been coasting off that nostalgia for far to long...they are a shadow of what they once where in my opinion

I have noticed it changes each month.
So April Xbox
May PS5 probably

Maybe this is to do with alternative month chip supply etc for each company.
Its nice they share every other month at the top.

@notleks_
Switch not that great? What about:
MK8 deluxe
Super Mario Odyssey
Yoshi’s Crafted World
Splatoon 2
Arms
BoTW

and Rocket League in hand held when the TV is busy..... love my Xbox but the Switch is brilliant.

@StylesT I have to agree with you on that. From an outsider's perspective, it's clear to see that Nintendo isn't making many new and noteworthy games anymore. They're focusing instead on their older games and they do that because they know people will buy them. Because of this, they have little reason to actually work on new projects. Not to mention that they can take their time with existing projects like BotW 2 and Metroid Prime 4 because their strategy is to release an abundance amount of old games with short development time and then once in a while release a huge new game.

Nintendo has become the kind of company that doesn't really put in much effort in terms of their software. Nintendo fans these days long for re-releases, remakes, remasters and what have you instead of new games, which means that in the future we won't be longing for Switch re-releases because there won't be many original Switch games. We're already nearing the end of the life cycle of a typical Nintendo system, which is six years (the Switch is four years old), which means that Nintendo is already preparing their next games on their next system.

The Switch is an excellent and innovative piece of hardware. But it's been severely under-utilised by Nintendo and doesn't offer nearly enough original first-party games that it should be offering compared to for example the Wii or the 3DS.

Switch has been one the of the best consoles ever and innovations and achieved all its success without the power and graphics of playstation and xbox consoles and without the biggest third party new releases. Imagine if nintendo made a hybrid console that was on par with playstation5/series X and had the newest big third party games.....

@notleks_ My thoughts exactly. I think, the Switch is still overhyped. I know a lot of people who went with the hype, bought a Switch and were disappointed then. Myself included. It’s still good for one or two of its exclusives that aren’t Wii U ports though.

@DreemWeever tbh you’ve named some great games, but the Switch has been out since March 2017.

So four years and thats it, just those games. Thats where the doubt for making a purchase lies

@LtSarge
The switch at the beginning, I had one was fantastic, BOTW, Mario Kart and Odyssey etc etc
But now they just release either 2nd party games which are ok Luigi mansion, Yoshi etc.
But god only knows what their first party in house studios have been doing since Mario Odyssey etc.
They sell millions of consoles perhaps they don’t need to make the effort and maybe it makes business sense to them financially.
Anyway they get no more money out of me and my Switch is gone, so it’s their loss.
I have series x and GPU now.

Q) What do you make of these results?

A) I think others have hit the nail on the head with it being a case of Sony unable to provide stock whilst Microsoft have been far more sufficient in that regard. I don't recall any recent game releases or news that would effect the situation otherwise.

On this comment section's discussion of the Nintendo Switch, I will admit that I'm not as big of a fan of the system as I was of previous Nintendo systems such as the Wii U, Wii, 3DS and DS. The joy-cons feel a tad too small, HD Rumble is underutilised and the Nintendo games haven't been quite as appealing to me as of late (the phenomenal Kirby Star Allies aside). It has offered me plenty of enjoyable gaming experiences such as Gal*Gun 2, Nexomon: Extinction and Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, but with a weaker HUD and features to it's predecessor (lack of Miiverse in particular hurts), my thoughts on the games often boil down to wanting to play them on the Xbox Series X instead. Switch releases usually only end up taking priority for me as a result of receiving physical copies, otherwise my system of choice now is the Xbox Series X.

@Dezzy70 Here's the thing though, those early games that came out on Switch were from when Satoru Iwata was still the president of Nintendo. He was the one who green-light those projects. We're now experiencing the aftermath of the new president's approach, i.e. re-releasing old games. Because this philosophy is definitely not one that Iwata endorsed. Iwata would always say things like Nintendo needs to constantly innovate and release new experiences. The releases these past couple of years go completely against that philosophy and that's why I don't believe Nintendo's approach is going to change anytime soon.

But yeah, I mean just compare Nintendo with Microsoft right now. Microsoft is buying up so many studios, giving their consumers an option to pay a low fee for hundreds of games and have now access to dozens of IPs that will be available only on the Xbox ecosystem. Not to mention that new games will be steadily made available for Xbox down the line. Meanwhile, Nintendo is playing it safe and mostly releasing old games. I can tell you right now that if this keeps up Microsoft is absolutely going to end up mopping the floor with Nintendo in terms of ambitious first-party releases once titles like Elder Scrolls VI and Starfield come out. There's just no competition if Nintendo is going to sit idly by and not invest in expanding their operations. Sony is already mopping the floor with them given how much popular their IPs have become in recent years.

In other words, I believe you made the right choice in going with Xbox this generation. I'm definitely going to do so as well and the final nail in the coffin will be if Nintendo announces a Switch Pro and completely abandons the old one while granting Switch Pro users access to all their next games that won't be available on the old Switch. At that point I'm done with Nintendo, they will have completely botched all goodwill they had with me.

I know a few people who Series VS PS5 was entirely down to who had stock.

Which is a decent sign, I suppose you wouldn't have had that last gen.

May be that the PS5 had lower stock but with things like The Show 21, Outriders and Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance coming day one to GamePass; the awesome support of FPS Boost and BC in general; and many games in the works (especially from Bethesda). I think Xbox is going to make big strides this gen. They’ve just made so many consumer friendly moves.

(And full disclosure, I also have a PS5)

Switch has Fire Emblem: Three Houses. 'Nuff said.

PS: I am platform agnostic and play pretty much every major console/handheld from the NES to PS5

To most of the comments on here, the switch has more AAA exclusives than xbox one and series S/X together and has a Lot of newer jrpgs. It HAS games outside of animal crossing, BoTW and Mario kart even if you take away the wiiu ports

I love my switch but the only games I have purchased for it in a long time are 3d world and pokemon snap. I had a wii u so its a bit or a dust collector recently, but the early years of the switch were great!

@uptownsoul Not necessarily. Basic economic theory suggests that consumers choose the product that's the cheapest and has the most value. This description fits better with Xbox than with PlayStation. Xbox has Series S and Game Pass which grants a cheap entry into the ecosystem. Game Pass is also on other platforms such as PC and smartphones, which is an even cheaper option if you don't want to buy an Xbox. Also, Game Pass offers a lot of value for a low fee. Meanwhile, PS5 doesn't offer first-party games on other platforms outside of a very select few, the PS5 Digital isn't that much cheaper compared to Series S, first-party titles on PS5 are €80 with no cheaper option and so on.

If brand loyalty is irrelevant and money is a major factor, then the consumer will choose Xbox over PlayStation. This is boosted even more if availability is higher for Xbox than PlayStation.

@themightyant See that’s the only real benefit of the Switch imo, being able to take it out. I’ve used mine on my breaks at work a few times, which was nice. Just the biggest thing for me that puts me off is the first party games are so expensive! That’s why I was saying I wish they had a system like Xbox Game Pass, because I can’t justify paying over £50 for Mario Kart just because it’s Mario. I’m not saying the games are bad, I’m sure they are fun games, just the price tags. £50-60 for Skyrim? No thanks.

@themightyant I agree. It’s cool for families with few TVs and gamers that travel a lot. It’s better to play Witcher 3, Skyrim, etc. on the go with some downgrades than not being possible to play them at all.

@UltimateOtaku91 which I don’t think you should take away Wii U ports for accounting for the Switch library. I get people on the boards screaming Wii U port but most people didn’t own a Wii U. The sales were what 12 mil maybe a little more but compared to 83 mil? As far as they are concerned the games are completely new and exclusive.

@uptownsoul Well I mean, past evidence shows otherwise. Recall when Microsoft messed up with Xbox One in the beginning of the last generation. At that point a lot of Xbox 360 owners were not willing to buy an Xbox One and instead jumped ship to PS4. This was a major reason for why the PS4 sold so well initially since it didn't have that many good exclusives as it had later on in its life cycle. Despite these consumers potentially owning a lot of games for 360 that they couldn't carry over with them to PS4, they still opted for a different ecosystem. The same logic could also be applied for PS3 owners since PS4 didn't have backwards compatibility with PS3. So I think you're overestimating how much people are willing to stay with one brand despite owning a lot of games for it. I personally don't think that aspect matters that much in the grand scheme of things.

@mousieone that is very good point, wii u ports would be basically new games to atleast 71 million switch owners

@uptownsoul That is a very good point! I did not look at it that way.

@notleks_ Switch is my least played console ever and the one I have bought fewer games for, partly because I also own Series X (Xbox One before it) and Wii U.

@uptownsoul I'm one of those who jumped from PlayStation to xbox this generation.
I was going to pick up a PS5 but the fact most games I'm interested in are also coming to ps4 I saw very little incentive in buying a new console - especially when new games are now £70 for it.

The Mrs bought me a Series S as a treat after a hard week and I'm now going to grab the Series X instead of PS5 (when available).
I have 150-200 games in my PlayStation digital library and I'm not that bothered as they will still be there if/when I finally pick up a PS5 down the line.

I think it makes sense as the Ps5 is so low in stock right now, especially here in the Uk. I know a couple friends who were lucky enough to beat the scalpers, I do see a lot series s on sale, so at lest people who want a taste of the new current generation can do that. Personally I’m not in rush as I have games pass on my pc and my phone, I have considered buying a series s but I want to see what Microsoft brings in terms of games. Same goes for the Sony as right now the game I want for that system is Ratchet and Clank.