PS5 Has a 51% Marketshare in the UK Over the Last 6 Months - Sales

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The marketshare for the PlayStation 5 in the UK has grown over the last year, according to GfK data shared by GamesIndustry.

The PS5 in the UK has a 43 percent marketshare of all console sales over the last 12 months (November 2022 to October 2023), however, over the last six months (May 2023 to October 2023) that has grown to 51 percent.

The Nintendo Switch has seen the biggest drop in marketshare, falling from 34 percent to 25 percent, while the Xbox Series X|S has shrunk from 26 percent to 23 percent.

"Recent PS5 highlights coming from unrestricted sales on the standard PS5 hardware model, aggressive price promotions in July and August, and the recent EA Sports FC 24 bundle," said GfK games boss Dorian Bloch.

"Over the same measures the Xbox Series consoles have dropped from 26% market share over the last 12 months to 23% over the last 6 months, but the biggest decline has been Switch, down from 34% to 25%."

This Black Friday will be the first one that all three current main consoles will be available in full supply as over the last few years there has been a lack of stock.

"Q4 traditionally accounts for around 50% to 55% of hardware units, so there is still a lot to play for at the time of writing," Bloch added. "Console hardware year-to-date is currently +8% ahead in the UK, but only due to a surging PS.

"However, the entertainment sector should take heed of overall economic uncertainty. GfK recently revealed that the consumer confidence index fell by nine points in Oct23 to -30 and that the major purchase index fell 14 points to -34 in the run-up to the festive season.

"The sharp falls remind us that the cost-of-living crisis exerts acute pressure on many consumers: heating homes, filling petrol tanks, surging mortgage and rents and a slowing jobs market, coupled with a new conflict in the Middle East, all contribute to growing unease.

"Not having enough money to make ends meet means juggling expensive gifts during the festive season – many consumers will look at major purchases carefully – consoles qualify – and whilst it may seem that entertainment is a priority, 48% of respondents in Oct 2023 said that they were either just managing, using their savings or running in to debt. We also saw that 39% of respondents in said that they felt their household’s financial position will worsen over the next 12 months."

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 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.

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18 Comments

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Geralt99 (on 11 November 2023)

Don't see it changing anytime soon.

• +3

Moseskyle83 (on 11 November 2023)

To be fair the last couple of months the PlayStation 5 has been reduced by almost £100 at times against the Xbox n even I finally got one when it £399 with a game so I finally got saints row which I thought wasn’t as bad as people said but then again I never paid £50 for it 😂

• +2

DonFerrari (on 10 November 2023)

Seems like the PS5 dominion is only increasing even when MS have improved their game output.

• +2

aTokenYeti DonFerrari (on 10 November 2023)

Captured audience. Sony could stop releasing first party content permanently and at this point it would make so effect on sales. Until and unless governments force transferable software licenses on the industry (IE I can important my PlayStation library onto Xbox or PC when a game is otherwise cross platform) console market shares are more or less baked in and not changeable. This is what Phil Spencer was talking about when he was talking about losing the console war.


Microsoft could release 15 games that are 10/10 masterpieces ever year, and Sony could release 0. And it would make 0 difference on console sales, because libraries are now trapped in ecosystems

• -15

Spike0503 aTokenYeti (on 10 November 2023)

"Microsoft could release 15 games that are 10/10 masterpieces ever year, and Sony could release 0. And it would make 0 difference on console sales"

Eh, while I think your overall points are sound, you might be overstating things a bit here. If the next 5 exclusives that MS makes are better received than the next 5 Sony makes, it's gonna have an effect. Now, will that effect be enough to make MS N1? Most likely not, but it's still gonna have some kind of effect.

• +5

CosmicSex aTokenYeti (on 10 November 2023)

This argument doesn't makes sense. The Series consoles aren't even keeping up with the Xbox One numbers. If libraries are trapped in ecosystems why isn't that translating over to Xbox? How can you know that Xbox numbers wouldn't change when they haven't release a single 10/10 masterpiece at all? How can you be sure what effect it would or wouldn't have without any evidence?

• +4

DonFerrari CosmicSex (on 10 November 2023)

Even more because earlier in the gen Microsoft was celebrating they closing on the marketshare for 2 quarters in a row and also Sony showing that like 40-50% of PS5 owners didn't had a PS4 before. And for myself most of my titles (the ones that I care are physical media and I hardly turn on my older consoles or play older titles). And considering the monthly rank of hours except some titles like fortnite people play the game on the months near the launch and hardly come back on significant amount.

• +2

DonFerrari aTokenYeti (on 10 November 2023)

X360 was able to increase 3x to 4x Xbox userbase on a single gen while PS3 lost 40% to 50% its userbase into a single gen. And before this gen even BC wasn't really something talked about. So Xbox issues on growing its userbase isn't because of governments not mandating migration/integration of libraries even more because we are talking about new purchases and PS5 increasing the speed of adoption while Xbox is decreasing and the ratio this year is 3:1 which is bigger than the totals for PS4/X1.

• +3

aTokenYeti DonFerrari (on 10 November 2023)

PS2 did not have trophies, cloud saves, friends lists, digital downloads, digital DLC, or digital MTX. The cost of switching platforms was the price of the console.

If you are a PS5 owner now, who also owned a PS4 for the entirety of 8th gen, and you wanted to switch to Xbox, you are losing: all of your trophies, your entire friends list, all of your cloud saves, your entire digital library, all DLC you purchased, all MTX you purchased (unless the game in question is one of the few third parties that support cross progress). And if you want to get a friend or two to switch, you have to convince all of them to lose all of their stuff too.

That’s not to say there was 0 cost switching platforms back then, but each successive generation the cost to switch increases almost exponentially.

Sony has achieved basically what Apple has with their customers: even if they wanted to leave the ecosystem, they feel they have too much to lose

• +1

G2ThaUNiT aTokenYeti (on 10 November 2023)

Pretty spot on. That's why Phil has said previously that Xbox lost the worst gen to lose in with the XOne. Unless you're the type of person who always had the extra income to afford all platforms every gen.

That's a big reason why Xbox has spread out their business beyond just the console by 2018, because at best, Xbox can be a secondary console. You're not going to be getting many PS only gamers to make a switch to Xbox the way Xbox did in the 7th gen. I think it's pretty safe to say that Xbox just as a console, will never catch PlayStation. It may continue to do well enough to continue existing, but that's about it.

Most of us are now pretty much dug in to the platforms we use now because the past decade has been used in building up everything you mentioned.

• -2

DonFerrari aTokenYeti (on 11 November 2023)

X360 had it and still many decided to change it to a PS4. Also you can see that on all these generations there was a good change of userbase declared by the companies themselves showing new users.
Won't deny that the more you stay on a platform the less likely it is that someone will decide to move. But not sure why would you get the need for government intervention.

• +4

ArchangelMadzz aTokenYeti (on 12 November 2023)

Ice cold take, Xbox 360 was incredibly popular in the UK, it was one of the only places Xbox One had any life.

• +2

IMissTheNinja (on 12 November 2023)

those rooting for Playstation's demise, are rotting

• 0

EpicRandy (on 10 November 2023)

With the PS5 being well stocked and even getting discounted in August, Xbox at the end of a dreadful nearly 20 months and its offering not being tied to its console offerings. All the while the Switch being on its last leg looks kicking in big time after ToK impacts faded.

This all created perfect conditions for the PS5 to outshine the competition in market share and Sony sure did not shy away from making use of such, Congrats to them.

• 0

2zosteven (on 11 November 2023)

lets compare when the lifecycle is over!

• -4

DonFerrari 2zosteven (on 11 November 2023)

yours expectation?

• +4

2zosteven DonFerrari (on 12 November 2023)

that sony will have less than 50% of the market share,
nintendo 43% +/-
sony 37% +/-
Xbox 20% +/-

• -4

DonFerrari 2zosteven (on 13 November 2023)

So let's say PS5 get close to 120M like they did this gen it would mean Xbox at near 65M and Switch at 139M

Switch will be past 139 for sure and I don't see Series getting triple their current sales, I would expect it to be under 55M perhaps even 50M.

My expectations would be Switch 150-160M, PS5 120-130M, Series 50-55M.

• -2