Switch Sales in the UK Up Year-on-Year in January, Xbox Series X|S Outsells PS5 - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 February 2022 / 2,830 Views
The head of GamesIndustry via Twitter has revealed the Nintendo Switch was not only the best-selling console in January in the UK, but sales were also up year-on-year.
The Xbox Series X|S was the second best-selling console, while the PlayStation 5 came in third place. There was limited stock of the next-generation consoles, which meant sales were down year-on-year.
"In the UK, Switch has started 2022 as it finished 2021… in fact, Switch console sales in January were up year-on-year," said Dring. "Xbox holds second spot and PS5 is third, but neither of the newer consoles had much stock in the channel last month."
Dring was asked if the Nintendo Switch was "reinventing what a lifecycle is" and he said said "It's certainly different from a Nintendo home console perspective. Although there are examples of its handheld business doing similar things."
In the UK, Switch has started 2022 as it finished 2021… in fact, Switch console sales in January were up year-on-year. Xbox holds second spot and PS5 is third, but neither of the newer consoles had much stock in the channel last month
— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) February 3, 2022
It’s certainly different from a Nintendo home console perspective. Although there are examples of its handheld business doing similar things
— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) February 3, 2022
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.
More Articles
Xbox sells better second month in the row. Maybe UK love Xbox again.
There is stock of series S, and no stock of PS5, its not difficult to understand.
"Examples" (plural) overstates it.
The original Game Boy went about 9.5 years before a more powerful mid-gen refresh (Game Boy Color), and about 12 years before its successor (Game Boy Advance)
GBA was about 3.5 years before a more powerful successor (the DS).
DS got a more powerful mid-gen refresh (DSi) at the 4 year mark, and a successor (the 3DS) at the 6.5 year mark.
The 3DS got a more powerful mid-gen refresh at the 3.5 year mark (New 3DS) and a successor at the 6 year mark (Switch).
While a product life-cycle can overlap with its successor, sales of the older Nintendo units have tended to decline massively every time a more powerful mid-gen refresh or a successor is released.
Switch is coming up on 5 years without either a more powerful mid-gen refresh, or a successor. Only the original Game Boy managed that, so that's a single example.
What did the DSi actually do for DS games? Technically, it is more powerful (double the CPU power and four times the RAM), but almost no games used that power, and they couldn't unless they were designed specifically for it.
On a similar note, what did the New 3DS do for 3DS games? The eye tracking 3D is a huge improvement over the launch console, but that is a quality-of-life enhancement, not something specific to a mid-gen refresh. It had the same GPU power, just shy of double the RAM, and a big CPU uplift, but again, games needed to be designed for it. Minecraft was the most notable. There were a half-dozen others, but all were niche.
In sum, I don't think the examples you gave of the DS and 3DS actually counter his argument, I think they enforce it. The power of the refresh had effectively nothing to do with either system's continued sales.
At retail there weren't a lot of DSi-specific titles, but DSiWare had many more.
I believe I had read about some games with frame-rate issues that ran better on the upgraded DS systems, without specifically being designed for them, but I wouldn't want to stake my life on it without researching it a bit more. :)
Perhaps you're right that Nintendo didn't even need to do those upgraded mid-gen refreshes then. New models with quality-of-life improvements, yes, all the systems got that (including the original Game Boy that was upgraded multiple times, such as the Game Boy Pocket, and the Japanese-only Game Boy Light, neither of which were also a horsepower upgrade).
One wonders why Nintendo has been in the habit of more powerful mid-gen refreshes and not choosing to promote them that way, not even for first-party titles? They promoted the GBC that way, I wonder why they did that less so with later upgrades? Of all of their handheld mid-gen refreshes, the GBC by far got the most titles written specifically to take advantage of its extra horsepower, at least at retail (it's possible one of the DS units actually had more software specific to it, when digitally-distributed games were included).
