Switch Big Black Friday Winner, Xbox Series on Par or Ahead of PS5 - Preliminary Estimates - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 04 December 2021 / 5,001 Views
The VGChartz sales team has crunched some early numbers to come up with preliminary worldwide hardware estimates for Black Friday week, the week ending November 27.
Not a surprise is that the Nintendo Switch was the big winner for the week with sales on par or slightly below when compared to Black Friday 2020.
Xbox Series X|S sales were either on par with or slightly ahead of the PS5 for the week.
The Xbox Series S saw a big boost in sales due to it having decent stock available, while the Xbox Series X had limited stock.
PS5 had more limited stock than the Switch and Xbox Series X|S. However, sales did see a boost week-on-week worldwide as sales were up in the Americas, mainland Europe, and Asia.
The biggest increase in sales did occur in the US with Switch and Xbox Series X|S sales up between 200 and 250 percent week-on-week, while PS5 sales were up between 150 and 175 percent.
Stay tuned to VGChartz for the full weekly hardware report in the coming days.
Preliminary @VGChartz estimates for Black Friday week (Nov 27):
— William D'Angelo (@TrunksWD) December 4, 2021
- Switch was the big winner.
- Series S sold really well due it having decent stock available.
- PS5 stock was fairly limited, so it had less of a boost than Switch and Xbox Series X|S.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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So that would roughly mean:
1.875 million switches
800,000 Xbox Series X|S
700,000 PS5
Or in that ball park for each. I’m new here, and I am aware there are parts shortages, so was that about expected as far as numbers? How does that compare to the 2014 Black Friday numbers from the last generation?
It seems look good numbers for everyone
Understandable. I still think it’s a good showing for all 3 given the crappy circumstances.
Side question: do you think the Series S will pass the Series X in lifetime sales sometime soon/if at all? I know getting granular numbers on the sales split between the two SKUs must be a pain but it really does seem like the Series S has taken off this second half of the year
Not to mention that we tend to think about the Series S from a Western World perspective of people who could afford either a Series S or X, or even a Series S and a PS5.
But that's not most of the world. It seems that Microsoft's long-term play is selling a tonne of Series S units and Game Pass subscriptions in parts of the world where incomes are lower (India especially), and/or places where import fees on gaming are very high (Brazil comes to mind).
Brazil is around 214 million consumers. India is coming up on 1.4 billion consumers. And those are just two countries out of hundreds. There are Asian, African, and additional South American markets where there is huge potential for the Series S to do well, and since Microsoft is only now getting Series S supply to match demand across developed nations they only now have the luxury of turning their attention to emerging markets. And they are; they recently launched an 8 months of free Game Pass promotion in India, for example... yes, due to a change in regulation there, but their reaction was swift and decisive and to the consumer's benefit, when there were other ways they could have responded to that regulatory change that would have been less to the consumer's benefit, and done less to promote Game Pass).
Series S could fail miserably in North America, Japan, Oceania, and Europe, and still go on outsell both the Series X and the PS5 by the end of this generation, if Microsoft's goal of engaging with non-traditional console gamers in emerging markets is successful.
And in addition to the lower price being important, the smaller size of the Series S is too. The Series X, and especially PS5, being larger is a bad thing in emerging markets where living spaces are often more compact. And Game Pass is definitely a huge selling point in places where a $60-70 game would be weeks worth of income.
And 4K/120 Hz/HDMI 2.1 TVs are far from the norm in emerging markets, so the Series S is more than powerful enough to get the most of the TVs it'll typically be paired with in these territories.
And many of these emerging markets have traditionally been rife with piracy (Brazil at a minimum has struggled with this, with bootleg games sometimes even being sold in stores there), so developers will benefit from the subscription model catching on in emerging markets. A developer does better from getting their share of the subscription revenue than getting nothing from a pirated copy.
If Microsoft is successful, and dozens of millions more consoles than normal are sold in emerging markets, it'll be an interesting challenge for Vgchartz to communicate that, since traditionally so much of your sales data is broken down into US vs. Europe vs. Japan. There'll be a growing grey area of additional data to communicate outside those core territories.
I think this could be an article, or series of articles, unto itself actually. I've done some freelance writing for the Mobilesyrup.com website in the past, and would be pleased to do so for Vgchartz if that was desired, FWIW.
