PS5 Best-Selling Console in the US in January, Xbox Series X|S in 2nd, Switch in 3rd - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 11 February 2022 / 6,687 Views
The PlayStation 5 was the best-selling console in the US in January 2022 in terms of units sold and dollar sales, according to figures from NPD. NPD includes the dates for the four week period of January 2 through January 29.
The Xbox Series X|S was the second best-selling console, while the Nintendo Switch came in third.
"PlayStation 5 was the best-selling hardware platform of January 2022 in both units and dollars. Xbox Series ranked 2nd across both measures," said NPD analyst Mat Piscatella.
Piscatella on PS5 sales for the month did say "the rankings are relative, so doesn't necessarily mean there were mountains of them out there." This does suggest sales were relatively close between the different consoles.
Overall spending on video games decreased two percent year-over-year from $4.80 billion to $4.68 billion. Spending on video game content dropped four percent from $4.26 billion to $4.11 billion, while video game hardware sales grew 22 percent from $319 million to $390 million.
Video game hardware revenue was the highest total since January 2009 when it hit $447 million.
"January 2022 consumer spending across video game hardware, content and accessories declined 2% when compared to a year ago, to $4.7B," said Piscatella. "A double-digit percentage gain in hardware spending could not offset declines in content and accessories spending.
"Despite hardware sales gains in January, supply constraints continue to impact video game hardware across all current generation platforms. Total market spending has now shown year-on-year declines for 3 consecutive months.
"Video game hardware dollar sales increased 22% when compared to January 2021, reaching $390 million. This is the highest total for a January month since the $447 million total reached in January 2009."
Pokémon Legends: Arceus was the best-selling game in the US in January 2022 on the overall charts and Nintendo charts.
"Pokémon Legends: Arceus was January's best-selling game," said Piscatella. "It joined Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl (#11) on the best-selling titles chart for the month."
Monster Hunter Rise jumped up the charts from 94th in December to third in January and God of War (2018) also fought its up to fifth place. This was due to strong launches on Steam for both games.
"Monster Hunter Rise (#3 in January, up from #94 in December) and God of War (#5 in January, #146 a month ago) both featured Steam launches during January 2022, which drove their respective gains," said Piscatella.
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales was the sixth best-selling game in January on the overall charts and came in second on the PlayStation charts. It is now only behind Marvel's Spider-Man and God of War (2018) as the highest earning Sony published title since 1995.
Here are the top 20 best-selling games in terms of dollars for January 2022:
Top 10 best-selling Nintendo games for January 2022:
Top 10 best-selling PlayStation games for January 2022:
Top 10 best-selling Xbox games for January 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.
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What a twist. Was not expecting that ranking.
It looks like the first week of January made the big difference. On the other weeks the numbers are almost equal. It's a bit strange that Switch is in 3rd place in the US, but it outsold PS5 and XBS every week in Europe. Looks like Nintendo had shortages in the US or Sony had heavy shortages in Europe.
Sony has had shortages everywhere
They are prioritizing the US market
They are really not.
What makes you think they're not?
Unless Sony have come out and said so, I reckon it is false.
They have shipped close to double the amount of consoles to North America this year compared to Europe. In fact, part of the reason VGC undertracked PS5 sales in North America is because the Europe numbers are so anemic
It seems they are. Spain has less PS5s sold in the first 4 weeks in 2022 than it had in the same timeframe in 2021 while shipments to the US increased significantly.
Curious to know what the actual numbers were.
Forza Horizon 5 at 17th, despite being on Gamepass, is pretty great to see
Probably need to update the site’s charts.
Remember this is only US sales, whereas VG Chartz does all of North America. And they had all three of the systems pretty tight for January if I remember. Definitely wouldn't take much swing to put PS5>Xbox Series>Switch in that order. And if it is close units-wise between them, then Switch automatically loses in the dollar sales area since it is cheaper than either of the other two.
Been following it each week though, and they’ve consistently had XS tracking ahead of PS5 in NA for all of January. I’m guessing VGC’s XS numbers are shipped estimates. Lot of XSS still on store shelves.
I think you missed what I was saying: Xbox COULD be ahead every week of PS5 in North America, while PS5 was ahead specifically in just the US each week as well. Maybe there are just no PS5's to grab in Canada and Mexico, whereas there are probably at least some Xbox Series S consoles to be sold there. Enough to put MS ahead of Sony in total NA sales. When things are close like they were, it's important to remember that VGChartz is showing all three countries in NA, whereas NDP is strictly US-only sales.
God of War 2018 at number 5 is great to see!
That's an insane boost PC sales gave the game if it got all the way to number 5!
Why do we have December for hadware but January for software ?
Okay thanks !
I'm trying to think of the last time I read the Switch being in 3rd place lol
This is only the third time that Switch is #3. The other two were November 2017 and February 2018.
